Redamancy
by seilleanmor
Summary: "She gave him her body. She gave him her body and her words and her heart. She gave him all her rain-soaked skin could allow." How they spend their summer. 'Always' spoilers. COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Redamancy: **

_(n.) the act of loving in return_

* * *

She gave him her body. She gave him her body and her words and her heart. She gave him all her rain-soaked skin could allow and now, with the early morning light filtering in through the blinds, so clear and pure after the storm. Now she can give him everything he gives her.

She stretches her hand out in front of her, twists her wrist and watches the slide of the sunlight across her skin. Doesn't even realise he's awake until he's catching her wrist, circling it with his fingers, bringing it to his lips to press a gentle kiss to the thrumming pulse just underneath the paper thin surface.

He grins against her; nips gently at her heartbeat where it makes itself known, jumps in the cobalt of her veins. She pulls her hand back slowly, doesn't even give herself time to feel guilt for his crestfallen expression before she's cupping his cheek in her palm, guiding his mouth to where it fits so perfectly against hers.

She kisses him languidly for a while, stops to bat his hand away as it snakes lower and lower on her back. She laughs, nudges at his nose with hers. "Not yet. Give me a little time to recover."

He grins, positions his hands on the smooth plane between her shoulder blades and kisses her again. His fingers ghost around on her back, finding the places he didn't get a chance to map last night, making them his.

* * *

She's his. She _his_, and he doesn't quite believe it, can't stop touching her just to make sure. He's allowed to. He's allowed to touch her now. He's allowed to traverse the slopes and planes of her perfect skin, soaking up everything that makes her who she is, collecting it in the whorls of his fingertips.

He smiles as her skin contracts, slides his hands down her back, squeezes gently at her sides. She hisses through her teeth, a low keening. Her shoulders rise.

He immediately drops his hands, pulls her to sit up with him. Now that he's looking, now that he has cleared the lust and the love from his gaze, he can see it. Her whole body, her _whole_ body, is mottled shades of red and blue and green and yellow, pain written into every line of it.

He closes his eyes for a second, tries to stop trembling. Reaches out to brush the backs of his fingers down her ribs where she's blue, where she's broken.

"Kate-" he chokes, voice a shattered thing in his throat. "Kate, did I-"

He knew he was being rough, knew he was crushing her, but she kept asking for _more_, kept repeating his name like a prayer against his lips, begging for salvation. And he just couldn't stop.

She lunges forwards, crushes her lips against his, wraps her arms around his shoulders and pulls him into her, moans in pain even as she catches his lip between her teeth. He pushes her away, can't focus through his sudden and nauseating need to find who did this and put a bullet between his eyes.

She pants, looks up at him through her lashes, eyes dark with desire. "No. Not you. Never you."

He brushes his thumb under her eye, along her cheekbone, tucks her hair behind her ear. "Then who?" His words threading out into the infinitesimal space between them.

She closes her eyes, leans forward, forehead finding his clavicle. "The guy who shot me. I was compromised and I let him get the drop on us."

He tries to block out the feel of her bare skin against his, the way her hair brushes against his pectorals. She hadn't told him anything last night, nothing more than_ I just want you_, and he'd needed nothing more than that. But now, he has to know. Has to know what she went through that carried her to him.

She kisses the skin next to her mouth once and then she carries on, lips brushing his flesh. "I chased him up on to the roof and I was going to get him. I was. But instead, he got me. I tried to fight, I really did."

He pushes her away from him, clings to her shoulders. Takes a second to delight in the way the curve of them fits so neatly into his palms. He has to see her eyes, know that she's okay, she's with him.

The momentum throws her hair behind her shoulders, positions her right in the light cutting ribbons through the darkness and his heart stops in his chest, just like that. He feels his sternum falter, feels the desperate confusion of his lungs at the lack of movement.

There are two long, narrow bruises at her larynx. Four, longer still, against each side of her neck. He _choked_ her?

Oh God. Oh, _Kate_.

She kisses him again, her lips light and soft against his. "It's okay, Rick. I'm okay."

He hears it now, hears how each syllable costs her, how it hurts her. Hears how dry and tired and pained her voice sounds. He kisses her forehead, feathers his mouth down to her temple. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there."

She tilts her chin up, kisses the line of his jaw. "It's okay. I needed it to be Ryan that pulled me up."

He pulls back again, meets her eyes. He knows he looks panicked, can feel how wide his eyes are, the furrow between his eyes. "Pulled you up? What?"

She bites her lip to hide a laugh. "I fell off the roof."

She fell off the-

Not funny. Not funny, Kate.

He opens his mouth, closes it again, finds words eventually. "You fell off the _roof_. _Kate_-"

She grows sombre, takes his hand and rests it over her heart, the heel of his palm over the scar again. _You can look_, she whispered to him against the door, and he did. He did, and it hurt, but it helped. And it helps now.

"Yeah. He pushed me and I fell. And I heard you. I heard you calling my name, telling me to hold on. So I did. And then you pulled me up, only it wasn't you. It was Ryan."

He rests his forehead against hers, can feel that vein that sticks out when she's very serious about something. He's always wanted to reach out, soothe it away with a line of kisses and so he does.

"It scared me. Not the almost dying. Just. That you weren't there. You've been there for four years now."

He smiles at that, remembers his words in her apartment and how right they sound coming from her.

He kisses her again and again and again, doesn't think he can ever get enough. "Tell me the rest of the story. Why were you wet?"

"I sat on our swings in the rain. Thinking." Our swings. Wow. He remembers that day so well, the elation at seeing her alive and vibrant and teasing coupled with the sharp agony of her betrayal. Why didn't she just_ call_?

He dips his head, kisses her bullet wound again. Rests there for a moment, just letting the heady relief pour over him.

He pulls back again, not far, just enough to meet her eyes. "Before that, then? What happened between the roof and the swings?"

She takes a deep breath, closes her eyes for a second. He's transfixed by her eyelashes, how the light makes them cast shadows over her cheeks. But then her eyes are open and holding his with an intensity that leaves him momentarily breathless.

"Gates took us back to the precinct. Told Espo and I that we had to go on administrative leave, effective immediately."

Crap. "Kate." He breathes her name, reaches for her. She pulls away, not done yet.

"And I just. I- I'm done. I just can't do it anymore. So I resigned."

She-

He can't. She's dealing him blow after blow, socking him in the gut again and again with how much he's missed in such a short space of time.

"You- You _resigned_?"

She shrugs. "The roof put everything in perspective. I felt like I had to choose between my job and you and-"

She cuts herself off, shrugs, but he knows what she's saying. He won. He won against her _job_. Wow.

"Do you regret it?" He's tentative, doesn't want to upset her. It had killed him last night, to watch the tears track down her cheeks. He doesn't ever want her to cry about him.

She smiles softly. "No. Not really. I just feel- lighter?"

He moves around, props a pillow against the headboard and shifts so she can sit in the vee of his legs. She leans back against his chest and he rests his chin on her shoulder, kisses her neck as gently as he can, careful of her bruises.

"If you want to go back, I'm sure Gates would let you."

She tries to turn to face him, winces as it twists the tender places of her neck and shoulders. "I don't know if I want to. I was thinking I'd just take the summer; see how I feel in the fall."

He smiles. He's so inexplicably proud of her, for seeing how badly she needs a break. For being strong enough to do this. "Okay. That sounds good."

She leans further into him and he tightens his arms around her waist. "Castle?"

He kisses the skin of her shoulder. "Hmm?"

"What happens to us if I don't go back? Would you- would you find another detective to follow?"

He laughs. God help him, he laughs, the thought so ludicrous he can't stop it from bursting out of him. "You're kidding right? I have enough material to write fifty Nikki Heat books. I don't need to come to the precinct, Kate. I just want to."

He hopes that made sense. It's difficult to find words through the press of her body against him.

She's silent, and he does what he always does. Fills the gap. "I have no reason to be there if you're not. Take the summer, take forever. Retrain, do something else. I just have one request."

She strokes his fingers, lines hers up along his and he takes it as permission.

"Let me be there for it, whatever you decide to do."

She nods; he sees the corner of her smile. He nudges at her, gently. She sighs and he thinks he sees her roll her eyes, tries to force himself to touch her like he yearns to despite her injuries.

"Are you done?" His smile belies the harshness of his tone. He didn't mean to sound that way, but the lingering pain of the last few weeks still taints his words even now. "Any more surprises to reveal?"

She turns in his arms, straddles his thighs as he stretches them out beneath her. Grins and kisses him again. "Just one."

He pulls back, raises his eyebrow and waits.

"I love you."


	2. Chapter 2

For the first half hour of their summer, she doesn't know if she can do this. He's utterly insufferable. Treating her like she's made of glass, like she'll shatter under the feather light trail of his fingertips across her skin.

It's when he pulls away from her attempt at a thorough exploration of the parts of him she's only dreamed about for a _fourth_ time that she snaps.

"Castle," he flinches, recoils at the sharp bite to her words. She forces herself to be softer, tries not to destroy the careful harmony they have this morning. "You need to stop treating me like I'm going to break."

He sighs, takes her hand in his. "I'm sorry. I just- it looks so painful and I don't want to hurt you."

She rolls her eyes at him, takes a second to be glad. It still works, they're still _them_. "If you don't start touching me like you want me I'm going to hurt _you_."

She watches something pass across his eyes, dark and stormy and pained, but then he's laughing.

He grins against her lips, kisses her and she feels him trying to tether himself. She knows because she's trying too. She can't dwell over how beautiful this is, how lucky she got, she can't do that. She'd never get anything finished; never leave the apartment, the bed, his side.

"I'm sorry. You know I want this. I will be sure to remind you of that at every opportunity."

She laughs, throwing her head back, the delicate column of her throat exposed and he licks his way along it, sucks at the tender skin below her ear. She shivers and he grins against her. She gets to feel his smiles now and it makes her head spin, makes her clutch at his arm.

"Good." She smiles up at him, teasing.

He kisses the smile from her mouth, letting her taste his happiness as his tongue slides against hers.

She presses butterfly kisses to his nose, his cheekbone, the abrasive line of his stubble. "I don't have anywhere to be today."

He pulls back to look at her, cups her jaw in his palm. "I know. Good. I want you all to myself today. Every part of you." He eyes her chest appreciatively.

She flushes and he grins, scrambling across the bed to escape as she swats at him. He brings out this childish side of her. Not often, she thinks the last time was maybe when she climbed onto his shoulders while they were handcuffed, but she's here to stay now.

They're quiet for a while. He's trying to be surreptitious while he watches her, failing miserably. She slides up to lie alongside him, head pillowed on his chest. His skin is softer than she'd always imagined. She wonders if he moisturises, buries her smile against him.

She remembers the incident with the heated shaving cream, knows exactly how metro sexual her man is.

Whoa. _Her_ man. Slow down, Kate.

He slides his hand down her arm and back up, easing the sudden tension from her bones. Hmm. Maybe she doesn't need to slow down. He loves her, he wants her, she's in his bed.

It keeps hitting her, leaving her breathless. It really happened. She really did arrive at his door and jump him. She doesn't regret it, any part of it. She knows she'll probably get restless later, without her job to fill her days. She knows they're going to argue. She does. But this, the steady hum of his heartbeat next to her ear, makes it all seem insignificant.

* * *

He marvels at the shape of her. How she folds the line of her limbs and her torso and her neck, oh her _neck_, all against his side. She juts against him, all angles and the thin reed of her bones through the cord of her muscle. He wonders if it's uncomfortable for her, sometimes, to be so slender. Wonders if she struggles to make herself fit comfortably and reminds himself to feed her.

There's so much he still needs to say, so much that he drowns in it every time he looks at her, can't force the words through the barrier of his throat. He's terrified of scaring her off.

This is good, though. This early morning with her, exactly how he always knew it would be. He knows they should get up, should shower. He knows his daughter will be home in a few hours; even now he's steeling himself for the inevitable conversation with her.

He buries his nose in Kate's hair and breathes deeply. Outside, the rain is done. It'd been dry for so long and then that incredible storm, rinsing everything. He doesn't want to think about her sitting out in that, doesn't think he can cope with that image.

He wants to open the window. He loves the smell after it rains. Petrichor. He learned that word from his daughter, from Alexis.

Ah, damn it. His thoughts keep sliding back to her even with Kate in his arms. He nuzzles his nose against the pale line of her scalp, kisses the crown of her head. "Kate," he breathes her name against her and delights at her soft shudder. "Kate, Alexis will be back soon. We should get decent. And then I was going to make her brunch."

She sits up and his palm falls to her back, tracing the contours of her spine. Her legs slide out from under his comforter and she hesitates. "I'll, uh- I'll go. Let you guys have some quality time."

He brings his other hand up, clings to her hips, feels her pelvis shift under his hands. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare, Kate Beckett. You're not going anywhere."

She sighs, turns to face him. "Alexis-"

He sits up and crushes his lips against hers, bruising, beyond caring. "Alexis will be happy for us. And if she isn't- this is my house, Kate. I get to decide and you're staying."

Her eyes widen for a second and then she nods, falls into his embrace. "I'm staying."

* * *

He holds her so fiercely. So fiercely that she feels her bones all pressing together, feels her skin moulding to the shape of him. She kisses his clavicle, drags her tongue along it, can't quite believe that this is _Richard Castle_ and he is holding her like she is his whole world.

He holds her like that under the scalding spray of his ridiculous shower. She fights free from his grasp, intent on actually showering, and when she turns around his hands land on her hips. She picks up the shampoo and he takes it from her, lathers her hair and then rinses it with such tenderness that it just makes it hurt more, makes all her bruised and aching places sting.

She turns around, washes his hair, trying not to wince as she stretches up to reach him. He smiles softly at her, water and love in his eyes.

Afterwards, he's still touching her. In the kitchen, his skin pressing against hers while she helps him make brunch.

She takes his hand as they lean against the counter, just looking at each other. The key turns in the lock and he flinches as if he's about to let go so she holds him tighter, smiles, presses a kiss to his cheek.

Alexis comes through the door beaming, eyes betraying her long night, the pain of so many goodbyes, but her smile belying it. She falters in the entryway when she sees Kate, but she keeps coming, buries her face against her father's chest.

"Daddy." She breathes it against him and Kate watches Castle's heart break, watches him bury his face against his daughter's hair. "Daddy, it's over. High school is over."

Rick pulls away just a little, uses his thumb to wipe away the sudden tears from his daughter's cheeks. "I know pumpkin. I know."

Alexis turns around in the circle of her father's arms and faces Kate. "Detective Beckett. You're here."

She tries not to flinch at the title, doesn't meet Castle's eyes because she knows they will be full of his apology and she knows that will break her. "Yes. I- there's nowhere else I'd rather be."

Alexis nods. "Okay. Are you two?" She trails off and waves her hands in the air.

Kate smiles softly at Rick, leaves it all on her face for them both to see. "Yes. We are."

Alexis pulls her lower lip between her teeth, her brows furrowing. "Okay. Uhm. I guess it's not any of my business."

Kate reaches out to rest her palm against Alexis' arm. "Yes it is. This is your home, and if you're not comfortable with this, with me being here, I can-"

Both Castles frown at her and she has to fight back her laughter. "Kate, I told you."

She rolls her eyes at Rick and focuses on Alexis. "I don't mind you being here. Just- just don't hurt him again."

That stings. She sucks in a breath through her teeth, withdraws her hand from Alexis' arm. "I won't. I promise. I'm done with that."

She is. She's done with hurting.


	3. Chapter 3

It hits her on the second day. At three in the morning, she sits bolt upright in his bed, his hand falling from its resting place on her stomach. She clenches her fists in the sheets, draws her knees up.

It slices at her, cracking her chest wide open, bleeding her out, her life staining his sheets. She can't stay here.

She slides out of his bed as slowly as she can, pulls his dress shirt over her head and then, because it's storming again and the air is cold, her NYPD sweatshirt. When did that get here?

The tile is cold. The tile is cold and her scar itches. Her fingers claws at her ribs, talons pushing against the irritation, against the places she broke. She closes her eyes against it, the onslaught of everything she'd pushed back so well.

Her coccyx aches, her ribs strain to contain the movement of her lungs. Her arms and her legs are weary; the muscles lament everything she asks of them. Her clavicles, her sternum, her phalanges, a chorus of mute agony.

She allows her neck a brief respite, rests her head against the cool ceramic of his counter. Hums out a sob that breaks into a whine halfway, like even her vocal chords are giving up.

When she opens her eyes, he's there. His eyes are wide; she can't see them properly in the darkness. She thinks they're navy. He reaches out as if he's going to cup her cheek in his palm but hesitates, his hand trembling in the empty space next to her. She leans forward, nuzzles her face against his palm.

That's all he needs. He's pulling her into his lap, sitting cross legged and settling her into the space he's creating, arms coming up around her, cradling her like a precious thing.

She buries her nose against him and breathes in on a gasp, holds it, an eternal thing, and then lets it go, watches the bare skin of his bicep erupt in gooseflesh as her breath floats across it.

He's kissing her hair again, nudging at her scalp with his nose, trying to soothe. She draws her knees up to her chest, hooks her arm around them to keep them there and wriggles her toes into the soft cotton of his pajama pants.

He tightens his arms around her. "Kate? Are you-"

She darts her tongue out to taste the hollow of his throat, see if his concern has altered the flavor of him. "I quit. I'm not a homicide detective anymore. I'm not-"

She closes her eyes, sees bursts of color in the blackness behind her lids like paint in water. Hates how permeable the barrier of her lashes is, how easily her tears can slide past.

"Shh," he soothes her, his hand somehow underneath the shirt, hot against her lumbar curve. "Shh, it's okay."

She focuses on the warmth diffusing across her skin from his fingertips, how her vertebrae and her ribcage and her clavicle hum with it. He affects her to her bones. "I don't know why I'm-" she cuts herself off, will not admit that she's crying again. "I don't want to go back. I want our summer."

His hand slides up, finding the tension in her trapezius, her deltoid, working it away. "You're still allowed to miss it, Kate. Even if you don't want to go back yet, even if you're happy here, you can still miss it."

He thinks she's not happy here? The way he says it, she can hear his doubt. She raises her head enough that she can see his eyes, enough to let him see hers. "I am happy here. I am."

He kisses her forehead, bumps his nose with hers. She likes this thing they have, the way he rubs his nose against hers. Eskimo kisses. "I know you are."

She slides one hand up his chest to his shoulder, clings to it for leverage as she reaches up to push her lips against his, mouth already open and wanting. "We should pack a bag. Today."

His eyebrows furrow and she uses two fingers to smooth the lines away, follows the curve of his eyebrow to settle at his cheekbone.

"I'm staying. I need clothes."

He laughs, the sound reverberating off the chrome of his bathroom, staying to keep them company. "No you don't."

She swats at his pectoral, knew that was coming. Set him up, really, if she'll only admit it to herself. "What about your mother, your kid? What if the boys come over for dinner, my dad?"

His mouth opens, his tongue a dead thing inside, and she feels her own brow echo his earlier confusion. Mentally cycles back through her words to find what caused this.

* * *

She wants to have people over for dinner. She wants to invite her father to his house for dinner. Put up a united front. He gapes at her, can't find the words to tell her what that means.

"You want to have people over to dinner?" His voice is soft; he can't quite stop the slow spread of his smile.

She ducks her head, dark curls falling like a curtain to hide her from him. "Mm-hmm. If that's-"

He pushes her hair back behind her ear, traces the shell of it. "Yes. Of course, yes."

He wants her to move in. he wants this to be her home too. He wants to wake up every day for the rest of his life with her beside him, he wants to cherish her. He knows she's not ready for that yet. But-

She wants to pack a bag.

"Okay. Let's pack a bag today. How long do you think you'll stay for?"

She grins, laughing at him. He can't laugh too, can't stop being so sombre about everything. He's still trying to fight off the residual ache of the day he spent thinking she was going to die. Without him.

"How long am I welcome for?"

He shoots her a look, growls low in his throat. "Don't ask me questions you're not ready for the answers to."

She bites her lip, eyes shining. "I'm ready. I'm ready, Rick."

He tries very hard not to raise his eyebrow, is not altogether sure that he succeeds. "Are you?"

She huffs and stands up from his lap. "Yes." He flinches at the way she hisses the word and staggers to his feet, clinging to the counter for support. He winces as his knees crack. He's not old.

His daughter has graduated high school.

He's _not_ old. He's not. He hurries after Kate, finds her in the bedroom and grips her hips, tugs her back into him. He kisses the top of her spine, laves his way across her shoulder and then up to her ear. "You are welcome- I _need_ you here, Kate, for the rest of our lives."

She shudders and he doesn't know if it's his words or his tone or the way his lips work at the column of her neck. Doesn't care, because he's tugging her down into his bed, sliding his own shirt from her shoulders, working at her clavicle.

* * *

It takes them an inordinately long amount of time to pack her bag. He hums with delight when she lets him into her room, sits on the end of the bed and bounces slightly as he watches her moving around, gathering clothes and toiletries.

She lets him help, eventually, because she can taste his excitement and it's ridiculous. He looks at the shirts and pants she's chosen, picks out her jackets and shoes.

She tries not to dwell on the fact that he picks everything she would have done.

Eventually, they get out of her bedroom, suitcase almost bursting at the seams. She doesn't know how long she'll be at his, doesn't want to have to come back because she forgot something.

His hand is on the doorknob when she remembers. "Rick."

He turns back to her, smiling softly. He looks so in love, his eyes so bright with how he loves her that she has to swallow hard, close her eyes for a second to concentrate. She fishes around in the bowl on her kitchen counter where she keeps her keys, finds the spare to her apartment.

She holds it up, laughs softly as his eyes widen and he rushes at her. He takes it from her grasp, closes his fist around it. "Really?"

She smiles, kisses him softly, nudges his nose with hers. "Yeah. Now I can send you back for anything I forgot when I'm too comfortable to move."

His face splits slowly into a beaming grin, criss-crossed lines like a road map of his mirth at the corner of his eyes. "Okay. Yeah. When you're comfortable at home, I can come back here."

She opens her mouth to protest, finds she can't. It's true. His loft is home. Anywhere where he is, that's her solid ground, her north star.

She's quoting his daughter's graduation speech in her head, remembering the way he whispered it to her under his breath in the middle of the night, his pride swelling every word.

"Yeah. Let's go home, Rick."


	4. Chapter 4

He had to give her up. He had to give her up in favour of Nikki and it's eating him inside even as his fingers fly across the keyboard.

He has no idea where she is. Somewhere in the loft. Maybe. Crap, what if she went out without him? He smashes the backspace key furiously; frustrated with this sentence that just doesn't say what he needs it to.

He can't spare any more than his errant thought for her. For Kate. Not now, when Nikki's voice is so loud in his ear, when Rook needs the same happiness that Rick himself has found.

He hits the period key with a flourish, smiles as he saves the document – twice to be sure – and then closes his laptop. He stands up from his desk chair, locks his hands behind his head and stretches, groaning as his back cracks audibly.

He moves through to the living area, turns slowly on the spot, looking for a sign of her presence. Hmm. Nothing.

Oh. He has a gym upstairs. Maybe she's there. He ignores the thought that surely he would have _heard_ her working out even as it smokes low in his stomach, just embers. He doesn't run up the stairs. He doesn't. He just…jogs.

She's not in the gym. Or the upstairs bathroom or his mother's room or Alexis' or the laundry room or-

Crap. She isn't anywhere.

It hits him so hard that it knocks the breath from his lungs and he staggers forward, grips the counter, his knuckles protruding from his flesh. He locks his elbows, focuses on the feeling of his joints snapping into place, solid and strong. He dips his head until his chin meets his chest, sucks in oxygen through his teeth. The nauseating flame of panic erupts in his stomach and he trembles.

Someone out there wants her dead. Someone wants her dead and he has no idea where she is.

He knows, some small, rational part of him knows that she's fine. She probably went to her apartment or just out. To give him some space. It kills him to admit it, but he can't feel guilty. She knows he gets like this, has seen him spend days at a time not showing up at the precinct because the book has him hostage. She knew to expect this, just like he knew to expect her to run.

It doesn't stop him from swallowing hard, wiping his hand across his face. Trying to collect himself. Trying to force the images of her lying broken in an alley from his stupid, vivid imagination.

He hears the key in the lock and his heart stops. He closes his eyes and tries to school his features into some semblance of calm, can feel at the corners of his eyes, his mouth, that he fails.

It's her. This is not the happiest he's ever been to see her, but it's close. "Kate," he breathes, and her gaze darts up from locking the door.

He delights in the furrow between her eyebrows, the way her mouth turns down at the corners in confusion. She's here, alive.

He strides over to her and takes her in his arms, knows he's squeezing too tightly, can't stop. He buries his nose in her hair, breathes in the sharp tang of sweat and underneath, the musky scent of her.

She pushes on his arms. "Castle, get off. I'm all sweaty."

He laughs, beams, can't stop smiling at her. "You're alive."

He feels the tension rip through her body, feels her muscles preparing themselves for action. "I just went for a run, Rick. I wasn't-"

He swallows hard, turns away from her slightly. He can't concentrate on what he has to say when she looks so deliciously pissed. It sends waves of relief through him, leaves him weak and shaking. "I know, I just- Just because you're done doesn't mean they are, Kate."

Her eyes widen and she steps back from him, breaks the tenuous circle of his arms. "You think they're still after me?"

He clenches his fists at his side. Her gaze tracks to them and he forces his palms to lay flat against his thighs. "I don't know. I didn't know where you were."

She sighs, runs her hand down her face, curls her fingers and rests her fist just below her mouth. "I did text you."

Oh. Crap. "You did?"

She shrugs. He hurries through to his study, finds his phone on his desk. He taps the screen, groans quietly as it displays a new message notification. He was so focused, so completely blind to the outside world. He didn't even notice.

He taps it, his heart in his throat as the message comes up. Oh, there are two. One sent thirty seconds after the other.

_Going for a run. Didn't want to interrupt you. I'll be back by 2._

And then, because she knows him.

_Not running away. Just need some air._

Shit. He didn't even- he was so panicked that he didn't check his phone, didn't even think to call her.

She appears in the doorway and he turns to her, guilt weighing him down. "I'm sorry. I panicked. Didn't think to check my phone."

Her face is carefully blank. "I get it Castle. You were scared."

Yes. Yeah, he was scared. She's his whole life, already, she's everything. He thought she was gone. He was terrified.

"I can't lose you Kate. I can't." She presses her lips together so they turn white, closes her eyes. When she opens them, they're softer. She walks over to him where he leans against his desk, steps in between his legs and cups his face in her palms.

She kisses him softly. "I'm right here. I'm being careful. It's okay."

He holds her waist in his hands, too tightly still, he knows. He's just finding it so very difficult to come down from the adrenaline rush of the past twenty minutes. "I'm sorry for being clingy."

She laughs, kisses him again. "How many times has one of us almost died? I think we're allowed to be clingy."

Oh God. How is this so good? How did he ever deserve her?

She rests her forehead against his. "I really am sweaty. I need a shower." She cards her hands through his hair, traces the shell of his ear. "So do you."

* * *

When she comes out of their bedroom after she's dried her hair, one of his shirts drowning her slender frame, she finds him with his head in the fridge.

"Rick," she calls out across the loft and laughs as he startles and smacks his head on the shelf.

He turns to her, rubbing his head with one hand. "Ow, Kate, that hurt. Don't surprise me like that."

She smirks as she reaches him, straightens the collar of his shirt. "Don't put your head in the refrigerator."

He sticks his tongue out at her. "I was looking for food. I wanted to cook for you, to apologize."

Damn. She thought that, uhm, _energetic_ round in the shower had assured him that no apology was needed.

She reaches up to gently probe his head for serious damage. Satisfied that he's fine, she slides her hand down to rest next to his mouth. "You don't need to apologize. It's fine."

He opens his mouth to argue and she fuses her lips to his, works over him until she's sure that his mind is blissfully blank. She pulls away, smiles at him. "You were saying something about food?"

He huffs. "Yeah. We don't have any."

She does her best to ignore the rush of delight at his choice of pronoun, picks at a loose thread on the cuff of his shirt. "Do you want to order in?"

He shakes his head. "No. I want real, homemade food. Let's go grocery shopping."

"What, right now?"

He grins. She knows it's because he expected her to say no, refuses to think about what that says about her. "Yeah, unless you had something else in mind?"

He makes his eyebrows dance and she rolls her eyes at him but doesn't fight her grin. "No. Okay, let me change."

He catches her around the waist as she starts to move away, fuses his mouth to hers. When he pulls away and lets her go her knees give and he smirks. "Do you have to? I like you in my shirt."

She swats his chest. "I like wearing your shirts, but not in public."

He hangs his head in mock dejection, nudges her towards the bedroom. "Okay fine. I'll wait here."

She's still laughing at him as she rounds the bookshelves and he disappears from view.

* * *

"Kate, let's-"

"No."

"But-"

"No."

She won't let him get any of the good stuff. He wants candy and pizza and chips and, _oh, _is that_-_

Yeah, he absolutely wants to try Golden Double Stuff Oreos.

He grabs the packet, bounces over to Kate where she's still, _still_, choosing fruit and vegetables and other boring stuff.

"Kate," she doesn't look up from the carrots. "Kate, look. Golden Double Stuff." She sighs at him but lets him put the packet in their grocery cart.

He doesn't usually do this. Usually, he buys healthy stuff. He had to raise his kid all by himself, has to keep healthy enough to follow an NYPD detective. He learned when Alexis was four that pizza is not a sustainable diet, so he bought cookbooks, found new and innovative ways to sneak vegetables onto his daughter's plate.

He's just so very excited that Kate's here and she doesn't seem even a little wary of how utterly domestic this is. And he wants her to be in charge of the healthy stuff, wants to give her a chance to prove that she does know how to survive without takeout. He remembers the Styrofoam temple in her fridge all too well.

She pays for half of the groceries and he lets her without argument. He knows how lucky he is that she even agreed to come with him, is saving the money conversation for later. Once she's moved in officially.

When they get home, she helps him put the groceries away, never once having to ask him where anything goes. He watches her, his mouth hanging open, and she turns to him.

"What?"

He shrugs. "You know where to put stuff."

She laughs at him. "I picked up on some things when I stayed here after my apartment blew up."

He grins, wraps his arms around her waist, kisses her. "I love you."

It just bursts out of him, he can't hold it in, can't do anything but tell her. She smiles at him, her eyes soft at the corners. "You too."

She helps him make vegetable risotto for dinner and they eat it on the couch. She watches the movie. He watches her.

(Until she swats his chest and threatens to move unless he stops the creepy staring.)


	5. Chapter 5

He wakes slowly, feels his consciousness being pulled, awoken by the early morning sunlight. His face is slack with sleep, the smile that adorned it as he drifted off last night long gone. One glance at Kate sleeping on his chest, even through blurry eyes, has it rushing back.

Wait. Early morning sunlight. Why is he awake so early? Usually, he only wakes up early if the day ahead is a big deal. Birthdays. Weddings. When he'd thought of a particularly good way to get under Kate's skin and he was excited to implement it. Of course now he doesn't have to weasel his way in, now all he has to do is ask.

Oh. Kate-

He knows what today is. He knows why he's awake.

He tries to slide out from under her; sure she's going to need as much sleep as possible to get through today. Her arm tightens where it's slung across his waist. She rubs her nose against his sternum, sighs long and slow, her breath tickling his skin, right over-

Okay. Yeah, that's his nipple. Shit, Kate.

"M'awake" she breathes against him and he grins. He loves her in the mornings, when she's not fully awake, when she lets herself be open with him, vulnerable.

He slides her arm off his chest, runs his palm up the length of her to cup her jaw, card his fingers through her hair. "Okay. Coffee?"

She rolls onto her back, squints her eyes shut, pulls the sheets up around her shoulders. "Mm. Sure."

He smiles at her, soft around the edges, dark hair spilling everywhere, in his bed. Yeah, he still can't believe this is happening, even a week later.

* * *

He slips back into the room with the coffee, expects her to have fallen back to sleep. He's surprised to find her sitting up in bed wearing one of his shirts, knees bent so she can rest her book on them. Ah, God, he loves her.

She looks up at him, beams. "Hey. Took you long enough."

He sighs at her, knows his eyes are shining with how much he loves her, belying his mock annoyance. "I wanted to make it perfect."

She softens, then. The teasing smirk gone. "It always is."

He grins slowly, settles her mug on the end table next to her side of the bed, walks around and puts his own coffee down. He climbs on to the bed, snuggles in close to her, resting his chin on her shoulder.

He waits her out, gets bored after a minute of silence. "What are you reading?"

She sighs, snaps the book shut so he can read the front cover. _Hell Hath No Fury_. Huh. He chuckles softly, grins as she shudders. "You know I have twenty six other books, and they're all better than that one."

How did he describe it to her? Ah yes. Angry Wiccans out for blood. She hugs the book to her chest, shifts away to face him. "I like this one." She sounds defensive.

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Why?"

She grins mischievously. "I'll tell you later. Right now I need to shower."

He moves to kiss her, cups her jaw in his palm. He's just- he's overwhelmed by how he loves her, how much she means to him. "Can I use the bathroom before you do?"

She laughs at him, presses her smile to his mouth once more. "Sure."

* * *

When he's relived himself, he comes back out of the bathroom. She's taken the shirt off, is standing totally naked in front of his mirror. He takes a second to admire her, the curves and planes and angles, the fluid line of her figure. He always knew she was beautiful, always knew she was sexy, but this? Finding her stark naked in his bedroom. It takes his breath away, wipes his mind clean of all words.

She shifts slightly and he can see her reflection. Her right hand is curled at the bullet wound in the centre of her chest. He swallows hard, refuses to let the hot tears burning in his nose and the back of his throat to show themselves. She doesn't need his pity. She needs unwavering strength, and he can be that.

He moves forward, stands behind her. He wraps his left arm around her waist, cradles her against him. With his right, he reaches up to cover her hand in his, lace their fingers together. He strokes their joined hands over the scar, kisses the curve of her shoulder.

She sighs softly, meets his eyes in the mirror. "I can't believe it's been a whole year. I didn't even realise. I- how did I forget?"

He smiles, tries to look reassuring, can see from his own reflection that he mostly fails. "You've been distracted."

She scowls at him, anger sharp in her eyes. "Stop joking. It's not even the shooting. Montgomery's funeral was a year ago today. I skipped right over the anniversary of his death. Didn't even take a minute to remember him."

He can't take it anymore, turns her in his arms and tucks her head under his chin. "It's okay. It's okay to let it pass quietly. He'd be glad that you're living, instead of wallowing."

She melts into his embrace, reaches up to fist her hand into his shirt. She's creasing it. He can't remember ever caring less about his appearance.

Well. He didn't care a year ago, would have spent the rest of his life a crumpled mess if only she could have hers.

Oh God. She died, a year ago today. She actually died. For a minute, the world was spinning on its axis, but he was spiralling away, just a point of light as he combusted in the inky night.

He shudders, buries his nose in her hair and breathes in the scent of her. _She's here she's here she's here_.

She flattens her hand out, runs her palm against his sternum in an attempt to soothe him. Suddenly, his blood is burning, his muscles crying out. He pushes her away from him, clings to her shoulders, marking her.

Her eyes are wide. "Don't you do that to me again."

She shakes her head, his fire spreading. "I can't help if I get hurt."

He ignores the fact that she _can_, if she's just careful. "Not that part. The running away. Leaving me to exist without you for three months. Not knowing if you were okay. Having to call your dad to check you were even still alive."

Her jaw drops as her eyes narrow. "You called my dad? Why would you-"

He growls, presses his mouth against hers in a bruising clash, rips his lips away as she tries to slide her tongue against his. "I love you. I love you, I had to know. I had to make sure you were alright."

Her face softens, remorse painted in every line, the corners of her mouth heavy with it. "I'm sorry. I was such a coward. I'm sorry."

He kisses her forehead, her eyelids, reverent. "I forgave you a long time ago. Just please don't do that to me again."

She shakes her head, rests her forehead against the hollow at the base of his throat. "I love you, Rick."

It's only the second time she's said the words. And yes, it's written into her smiles, the way her eyes soften when he's near, the way she quietly curls next to him, presses herself against his side on the couch. But he's a writer, words are his safe ground. She knows, and she's making an effort to give him the words.

And oh, he loves her for it. "Just don't leave me."

He begged her. He begged her not to leave him as the sun beat down onto his back and she bled out into the grass. He begged, but she left anyway. He just needs-

"I won't. I promise. I'm not leaving."


	6. Chapter 6

She did tell him she loves him. She did. And she's trying to use words _and_ actions, trying to show him how she feels. She's just not sure that he's getting it. So she hatches a plan.

* * *

She makes him stop under a tree. It's in a corner of the park he can't remember ever having been in, took them a long time to walk to it. He looks around, taking in everything.

She squeezes his hand, guides him to sit down with her under the shade of the enormous tree, dappled like sunlight in water. "This is the part of the park near where I grew up, where I used to hang out."

She's not looking at him, picking at blades of grass and watching her hands work. Already, already he wants to hold her, wants to soothe her. He lets go of her hand and she drops it to the grass. He drops his palm on top of the back of her hand, lines his thumb up next to hers and strokes along it.

She looks over to the left. "My friends and I used to play baseball or run around on that stretch of grass over there." She nods her head at an expanse of grass unbroken by trees. He stays quiet, doesn't want to ruin her narrative. "In the summer we'd come and just sit around, bring a picnic and our stereos." He grins at the image, imagines a Kate circa ninety five.

She tilts her head back, looks up through the leaves at the sky, the blue so sharp and crisp today. She looks at him, finally, smiles slowly. "I was sitting right here when I had my first kiss."

He leans in to kiss her, see if he can taste the memory on her tongue. And yeah, okay, to claim her. She's his now. When he pulls back she's smirking at him like she knows. "Who was he?"

"Joey Evans." He's so incredibly relieved that she's not smiling fondly at the memory, that she doesn't gaze softly into the distance but instead holds his gaze. "I was fourteen."

He kisses her forehead, brushes her hair back, smoothes the wispy hairs at her temple. "Was he worthy of you?"

She laughs at him, throws a handful of grass at his face. "Are _you_?"

He tries not to let the flash of hurt show on his face. Must fail, because she cups his jaw, leans in to press her nose to his. "Other way around, Rick. I'm the unworthy one."

No. That's-

"No, Kate. I don't deserve you. I don't- I haven't done enough good to ever deserve you, how extraordinary you are."

She holds onto his ear, not tugging playfully or pinching like she has so many times before, just forging a connection. "Okay. We can agree to disagree then."

He doesn't agree, he really doesn't, but he wants to hear the end of her reminiscing. But yeah, he's going to put her right at some point, going to have to make her see that she is so much more than he could have ever hoped for.

She drops her hand again, resumes her picking at the grass. "He was my first love. Well, not real love. Not- not like this. But what I thought, at the time. I thought- you know, forever. All that." She laughs self-deprecatingly and he hears the hurt behind it, hears fourteen year old Kate still nursing the wounds. "And then he broke my heart. Made out with some random girl at a party."

Something inside him aches to find this boy, man now, and make him pay. Or just tell him about her; make him suffer under the knowledge of what he gave up, this incredible woman he let go.

"I'm sorry." It's strangely paternal, this feeling now. He's seen this before, seen his daughter's pain, and he yearns to take that from Kate, erase it from her past.

She smiles, straightens his collar. "I'm not. It made me stronger. That strength was useful later on."

He chokes a little, falls into her, forehead meeting her clavicle. She brings her hand up to his back, settles her palm between his scapulae. He just wants her to not hurt again, to not have ever hurt, and he knows he can't do that and it's killing him.

She stands up and he hesitates, momentarily transfixed by the length of her legs, the way the muscles ripple underneath the taught expanse of her perfect skin. She holds her hand out to him and he takes it, allows her to help him stand and then uses their connection to tug her into his side.

"Thank you for showing me." She smiles mysteriously, shrugs at him. Her body plays down how much this means, but her eyes-

She knows.

* * *

In the elevator she almost vibrates with anxiety, has to repeatedly clench and unclench her fists to try and control the tremors wracking her. He gives her an odd look and she ignores it. This is her heart, what she's about to give to him.

Well, he already has it. But she's telling him; or rather she's about to.

Keep it.

* * *

She closes the front door with her body, fists her hands in his shirt and pulls him back against her until their hips are flush. He moans softly and kisses his way down her neck, biting very gently at her skin and then soothing with his tongue.

Her knees give and she slumps against the door. He catches her with a leg between hers and she lets out a low keening at the delicious pressure. No. this is- there's something she needed to say.

She grabs his face in her palms, pulls his head up to meet her. "Rick."

He moulds his lips to hers, fists his hand in her hair and uses it to angle her head just so, slide his tongue against hers. She pushes him away, clings to his shirt again so he knows she doesn't want him to go. "This is where I had my last first kiss."

He laughs, kisses her again, runs his hand around under her shirt to rest against the curve of her lower back. "Not true."

She sighs at him, bites down on his ear. "Shut up. Don't ruin it. I wasn't about to take us back to that alley."

He shudders. "Okay. Don't blame you."

She positions his head with her hands again, forces him to meet her eyes. "I'm trying to make a statement."

He grins, brushes his smile against her jaw. Suddenly reverent, he hovers at her temple, tucks her hair back behind her ear. "I know. I'm trying not to over think your statement. Don't think I could stop myself getting to one knee right here." He strokes his fingers along her cheekbone, touches her nose with his.

"Oh," he hums softly, kisses her clavicle, and she has to force her eyes open, "I thought you said it should be big." He laves at her ear and she gasps, cants into him. "Helicopter ride, right?" Her words are little more than air now.

He laughs, pulls back to look at her. Something in the way her face looks makes his grow serious, his smile slipping away. "We don't need big. We don't need an enormous declaration to share with the world. I'll just- one day, I'll be so overcome with it, with how much I love you, and I'll just ask."

A fierce longing rushes through her, leaves her trembling. Her knees give again and she falls against him. His arms come up around her, cradling her to his chest. "Not yet. Just- not yet."

He presses a row of kisses to the pale line of her scalp like a sentry to guard her, keep their promises safe. "Okay," into her hair, "okay, but soon."

She nods, sucks her lower lip into her mouth and then thinks better of it, takes his between her teeth. He moans, clings to her waist. "You up for a repeat of the rest of that night?"

She rocks her hips against his thigh, her jeans sliding against her, _oh so good_. "Definitely."

He sighs, runs his hands through her hair. "You're not wet, though." She arches an eyebrow at him, grins wickedly, laughs as his eyes widen. He takes her mouth again, groans against her. "You're a tease."

She leans back, the momentum pushing her lower body into his. "Not teasing if I fully intend to act on it."

He nods in agreement and she growls, thrusts her hips into his. "Now, Castle."


	7. Chapter 7

He wakes her up with coffee, holds the mug right next to her face. Her eyes twitch as the scent rouses her and he bends down to press a kiss to her forehead. When he pulls back her eyes are open and watching him.

He feathers his fingers along her cheekbone, watches the thick charcoal of her eyelashes flutter. Her eyes darken throughout the day. When she first wakes up, they're green like moss. And by the time she's falling asleep in his arms, fighting to keep them open, keep watching him, they're molten chocolate.

Kate sits up, kicking herself free from the comforter and taking the coffee from him. She bends her legs and rests the mug on the apex of her knee. He sits sideways on the bed next to her and she wiggles her toes into his thigh, warming them against the material of his pajama pants.

She lifts her mug, takes a sip. He rests his chin on top of her knees and grins at her. "I love you."

She swallows hard, eyes wide. He hates that it still takes her by surprise. He wants her to settle into it, be comfortable. He wants her to know, to have no doubt. She smiles, reaches out to run her hand through his hair, tousling it. "I love you too Rick."

He makes a running motion with his index and middle fingers down the slope of her thigh, slides his fingers out to span her side, thumb circling the sensitive skin translucent over her hipbone. "You are so beautiful."

Her hand slides out of his hair to cup his jaw, her thumb brushing his lower lip. He bites at it, slides his tongue along the whorl of her fingerprint and she sighs. "You're emotional today."

He pulls his legs onto the bed, curls them underneath himself. Braces his hands on either side of her hips and leans forwards, her knees bracketing his sternum. He kisses her, mouth closed, rests his forehead against hers. "It's our two week anniversary."

She snorts, puts her coffee on the nightstand to free up both her hands and then shoves on his chest, sends him backwards. He settles on his haunches. "Are you serious? You're seriously-"

He swats her knee, stands up and moves around to his side of the bed, pulls a parcel from his nightstand. He comes back around and presents it to her in a sweeping gesture. "Got you something."

She rolls her eyes, snatches the parcel from him. "I see that." She hooks one finger under the paper, slides it along to undo the tape. It falls open. She shakes it off, holds the slim black box in her hand.

She looks up at him, rolls her eyes. Again, really Kate?

Even as she opens the lid he realises, too late, that this can't end well.

She pulls the fabric from the box, inspects it. It's a black tie with a white pebble dashing effect to look like tarmac. Chalk outlines of victims adorn the front, crime scene tape crisscrossing it.

"Kate, I'm sorry. I saw it and thought of you. I forgot." He chokes the words out, her face carefully neutral.

She looks up at him. "It's okay. It's- I like it." She's smiling but there are - crap – there are tears in her eyes.

"Kate" he breathes and she smiles wider, blinks hard, swallows.

"Like Jenny's two week gift to Ryan. It's funny." She laughs but it's too forced, jars the sharp edges of his ribcage.

He attempts a smile, sits back down on the bed and wraps his hand around her ankle, squeezes. "Yeah. I don't know, I thought it'd be cute."

She nods, tucks her hair behind her ear and smoothes her slender fingers over the silk of the material. Such beautiful fingers, like a pianist. He wonders if she plays.

"Kate? Do you play the piano?" Her gaze snaps to his again, confusion rife. But it's easier, his absurd question diffusing some of the tension.

"No, guitar." She bites at her lip for a second, looks down at the tie in her hands. "A tie? Castle, I'm a girl."

Some part of him, the part that suggests she pop one more button and finds her posing with a bolt cutter hot, wants to rake his eyes appreciatively over her figure, the way his soft cotton shirt clings to her curves. But he can't right now. He hurt her and now he has to try to heal her.

He shrugs. "You wore a tie once."

Her eyebrows furrow, delicious creases in between them, and she tilts her head. "When?"

He doesn't even have to think about it. "During the art theft case." He's very careful not to mention Serena Kaye and her involvement in that case. Even though Serena had been sexy, had been wearing that skin tight dress, and yes, he had been staring at her, he'd still noticed Kate. Still been utterly gobsmacked by her tie and her hair and her face and everything about her, the easy grace she exudes. The femininity and sex appeal even wearing a man's accessory.

Her eyes harden just a little and he knows she remembers Serena, remembers her anger at him. "Why do you even remember that?"

He makes his eyebrows dance at her. "It made me want to close my fingers around it and pull you towards me and-" he stops talking, kisses her, his lips moulding to fit the shape of hers. He runs his tongue along the seam of her mouth, and she parts her lips. His tongue slides against hers and she lets out a breathy moan.

He pulls back just a little and she pants staccato bursts of hot air into his open mouth. "Okay. Ties are good."

He laughs, kisses her again. As he leans forward her knees dig painfully into his ribcage and he grunts, pulls away from her mouth. "Ouch. Your knees."

He struggles to the other side of her, sits back against the headboard and tugs her to lean against his side. He kisses her temple, laces their fingers together and rests them on her knee. "I'm sorry for being an idiot."

She turns to face him more fully, her eyes serious. "You weren't an idiot. I like that you thought of me, I like that you made the joke. I like how relaxed this is. We're having fun."

He smiles softly at her, presses kisses in a line down the bridge of her nose until he meets her mouth, caresses her lips with his own. He tries to pour his apology into it. "We are. I'm glad you're comfortable here with me."

She nestles her head against the curve of his shoulder. "I always hoped it'd be like this. That we would just slip into it so easily, just be together."

His heart swells in his chest; he feels it pushing for space, his lungs bearing the brunt of it. He sucks in a breath, closes his eyes for a second. "I knew it would be. You're already my best friend. The relationship is basically the same, except that I get to do this-" he kisses her very softly, fingertips at her cheek, "and I get to tell you how I feel when I want. I don't have to hide it."

She slips her hand down to his waist, her arm crossing his chest, and hooks two fingers into the waistband of his pants. Her fingernails scratch gently at the flesh of his hip and he shudders. "I'm sorry I made you hide it for so long."

"It's alright. I wasn't exactly successful." Thinking back, he really wasn't. He couldn't turn off his love for her, couldn't keep it from his eyes. Couldn't stop from sharing too much of his heart before she could carry it. But it's okay, it doesn't matter. It got them here.

She laughs, bright and free. "No, you weren't. I was just good at ignoring it."

"Yeah."

She slides her hand further down his pants, shifts to straddle his thighs and leans forward, the ends of her hair brushing his chest. "I'm not ignoring it any more."


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I know I've thanked a lot of you personally, but I really just want to take a moment to thank everyone who has put this on story alert, reviewed it, favourited it, everything. Your (so very lovely) words of encouragement mean so much to me and are the reason why I do this. Thank you.**

* * *

Kate sighs, closes the book with an audible thud and stretches out on the couch, arching her back up off the cushions. She moans as the stiff joints of her back and neck are pushed to their limit and then she drops back to the couch, her body loose and fluid.

She sees him watching her from the office doorway, but there's no way she's going to acknowledge him. She closes her eyes and curls up onto her side. Finishing a book always makes her sleepy, like her subconscious is desperate for a chance to process everything she's learned.

He moves over, sinks to his knees on the floor, folds his arms next to her head. Leaning forward, his forehead comes to rest against hers. "You finished it." He kisses her softly, smiles against her lips. "Can you explain to me why that one now?"

She sits up, rests her bare feet on his thighs. He's always so warm, radiating heat, and she loves to bury her toes against his thighs to warm them. She takes a deep breath, clenches her fists. "When someone dies, there's all the obvious stuff you have to do. Inform family and friends, their boss. Register the death. Start planning a funeral."

His hands fall to her feet, dwarfing them. "Kate-" he breathes.

She interrupts. She wants to tell him, and if he starts comforting her she will fall apart. "But there's the stuff you don't even think about at first. Cancelling any appointments. Her gym membership, magazine subscriptions. And returning her books to the library."

She stops to look at him. His eyes are focused on her face, open and reassuring, but no hint of the desire to unravel another layer of the Beckett onion that she knows burns inside him. "That was my job. The books. There was always a stack on her bedside table, and on the top of the stack was Hell Hath No Fury. I knew she'd finished it because her bookmark was tucked at the very back."

She lets out a light laugh, tries to keep herself buoyant. She can make this a good memory. "I took all the others back, but I renewed that one. I wanted to read it, the last book my mother ever read."

He makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat. "Shit, Kate." He struggles to his feet, sits next to her on the couch and takes her hand in both of his, clinging to her.

She pulls her legs up, curls towards him. "I read it and I just- I felt close to her. I could imagine what she'd think about the characters, the motives, everything. She was always so… empathetic. I knew her heart would have ached for your victim."

His mouth moves like he wants to say something but there's no sound. He looks completely in awe of her.

A key turns in the lock and both their heads snap towards it. The door pushes open and Alexis steps through, balancing grocery bags. She stops when she sees them, frowning. Kate's face is carefully impassive so she knows it must be Rick giving them away. His poker face is worthless when it comes to her mother.

"I bought some stuff to make dinner. Everything okay?" The girl moves through to the kitchen and drops the bags on the counter, comes back around to sit on her father's other side. "Dad?"

He shakes his head, blinks hard. "Yeah, it's- everything's okay."

Alexis' eyes are sharp, she doesn't believe him. She shrugs, pats her father's knee. "Alright. Then you won't mind helping me put the food away."

She stands up and moves back through to the kitchen, gives them a moment. Rick turns toward her. "Kate-"

She presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. "I'm not done. I'll tell you later, I promise. Let's help your kid make dinner."

* * *

He can't push it back. He's trying, he is, but his laugh is brittle, his movements stilted. His daughter is watching him. He hates how worried she looks, hates it, but he just can't.

All through dinner he's quiet, leaving Kate and Alexis to conduct the conversation. Picking at his food. His stomach is churning, his mouth dry. He can't swallow.

He can't stop thinking about Kate at nineteen, curled up in her bed reading his book. Using his book as a futile last connection to her mother. He's a swirling mess of emotions, gratitude and heartbreak and a burning desire to take the pain away, shoulder some of it for her.

He wishes he'd been there. He wishes he could have been there for her to lean on when no one else was. Having been there in the form of his book is good, he's glad, but it's not enough.

After they've loaded up the dishwasher, wiped down the table, his daughter disappears upstairs. Kate hesitates for a moment, watching Alexis go. "Do you think it's my fault she's in her room so much? Do you think I make her feel like she has to hide herself away?"

He can't even let himself think about how incredible she is, how fiercely she cares for his kid. He's barely managing to stand up as it is; she has to stop piling this stuff onto him. "No. She can tell something's going on. And I think she's Skyping with friends anyway. Please finish your story."

He doesn't have any more words, can only tug Kate into his arms and bury his face against the top of her head.

Her hands slide over his back, mapping the topography of him. "Castle, your books"

He can't hear her properly, her words getting lost in his chest. He pushes her back gently, hands at the curve of her shoulders. "Your books made me think of Mom. They made me understand her craving for justice. The characters felt so real, so true. I could get so absorbed in them and I could forget. I fell in love with your books, and I fell in love with you a little bit too."

He doesn't believe it. He can't let himself believe it. This woman, who is everything to him, likes his books. _Loves_ his books. "But you didn't want me to shadow you; you didn't want a book based on you."

She hums softly. "You'd already ruined the illusion surrounding you. I didn't want you to ruin your books for me too."

It hurts. Even though she's kissing him, trying to smother the aftertaste of her words, it stings. "Did I ruin it?"

She shakes her head, fervent. "No. No. I got to see how you write. I got to- Jesus, Castle, you asked for my opinion. I got to _help_."

Her eyes are boring into his, pleading with him to understand. There's such passion in the depths of them, a burning intensity, and he just knows. "You came to a signing, didn't you?"

Her eyes light up, lips turning up at the corners. "You remember?"

And oh. God, that hurts. It kills him, because-

"No, I don't remember. I'm just guessing. I've done a lot of signings in this city and if you love my books, then-" he shrugs.

She stands up on her tiptoes, hands flat against his chest for leverage, and kisses him. "No _if_. I do. I love them. They propped me up."

He kisses her again, soft and closed-mouthed. "I thought you said the badge propped you up."

She shakes her head. "The books did before the badge. And then after the badge it was you. Until I could stand up on my own. I can do that. And I'm choosing to stand with you."


	9. Chapter 9

He shakes her awake gently, kisses the curve of her shoulder, her cheek. "Kate, wake up."

Her eyelids flutter and she smiles slowly, reaches up to rest her fingers at the corner of his mouth. "What's wrong?"

He kisses her gently, eases an arm under her shoulders. He pulls her to sit up and she cants into him, resting her head on his shoulder. She falls more against him, sleep making her heavy, her body moulding to the shape of his. "What is it? Was sleeping."

He does feel guilty for waking her, but he was just so overwhelmed by his need to share with her that he couldn't stop himself. "I'm sorry love. I just wanted to show you something."

She blinks hazy eyes open at him again. "Kay. Do I have to move?"

He still has one arm around her shoulders; it's nothing to scoop the other under her bent knees. He struggles to his feet, smiling as her arms come around his neck. "Really?" She huffs, hot air dancing across his neck. His pulse jumps, his skin erupting in goose bumps.

He wants to kiss her. He wants to kiss her so badly but he has to concentrate or he might actually drop her. "I already woke you, can't expect you to walk too."

He makes his way slowly through his office and out onto his balcony. He sinks down onto one of the chairs, shifting around to let her curl up in his lap, tucked against his chest. Finally, finally he can use two fingers at her chin to tilt her head just right, press his lips to hers. He grins against her mouth. "You good?"

She shivers as the night breeze caresses them. "Cold. I was so warm in bed."

He kisses her temple, grabs a blanket from where he left it on the floor and wraps it over her shoulders, his arms tight around her, holding the blanket tucked over her slender frame. "Okay?"

She nods, turns her head to bury her nose against his chest and breathe him in. He shudders, trying not to jostle her. "You cold too?" Her voice is scratchy with sleep, smoky and wonderful.

"No." She laughs at that, quietly, like she's too tired for real emotion. "Kate, love, I need you to wake up a little bit."

She groans, pushes against his chest and sits up, her eyes still closed. He kisses her eyelids, the slope of her nose. God, he loves her. All the time, every day, but right now he just-

He could cry, he loves her so intensely.

She opens her eyes, smiles at him. He shifts her in his lap, guides her to rest her head back against his shoulder. She sighs softly. "You want me to look at the stars?"

He clasps his hands on her stomach and hers fall to rest over them. He loves holding her hand, her fingers cool and fluid in his. Walking in the park or the grocery store or anywhere. It shows the whole world that they're together, that he's hers.

He kisses the spot behind her ear that he knows makes her burn for him and she whimpers. "I want to tell you something that Alexis told me a couple of years ago."

He sees the edge of her smile, soft at the corners, her muscles lax with sleep. "Mm-kay."

The blanket starts to slip down her arm and he pulls it back around her, the pads of his fingers just brushing the silk of her skin. "Does your answer change if I tell you it's physics stuff?"

She laughs again, turns her head half towards him, pokes her tongue just past her teeth. "No. I'm sure you'll make it interesting."

He touches his lips to the corner of her mouth, travelling across her jaw. "Okay. Well, there's this process called nuclear fusion."

"Oh God. Changed my mind." Her tone holds a lazy irritation but she snuggles back into him, clutches the blanket around herself.

He flicks his tongue against the lobe of her ear, bites it gently. "Hey. Listen."

She rests her head back, the apex of it perfect against the curve where his neck meets his shoulder. "Sorry, go on."

He slides his hands underneath her shirt, draws languid circles on her stomach as he speaks. "It's when two really light nuclei, of something like hydrogen, join to make a bigger nucleus. It releases a load of energy, and it makes all the heavier elements like oxygen and all that."

She blinks heavily, focuses her gaze on the stars again. "Okay. I get it."

"Well, it takes such high temperatures that there's no industrial way to do it. It only happens in stars." He slides his hands higher up, spanning her ribcage.

She sucks in a breath through her teeth. "Right."

He reaches one hand up, still under her shirt, to rest his fingers against the bullet wound in the center of her chest. "So people are made up of elements right? And the elements are made by nuclear fusion. So if you think about it, we're all made of stardust."

* * *

She lets out a peal of laughter, clamps her hand over her mouth. His neighbours have their windows open, the night air too hot and stuffy otherwise, and she doesn't want to wake them. "Oh God. Seriously. That is-" She shakes her head at him. "So cheesy, Castle."

"Hey now, Alexis thought it was awesome so she explained it all to me. I thought you'd find it interesting." He shrugs, looks down, his fingers stilling against the over-sensitized flesh of her stomach. Seriously, Rick? It is so unfair to get her so worked up while talking about physics, of all things, and then just stop. She shifts around to curl against his side again, see him better.

Oh, shit. He looks really hurt, not just faking like he does so often. This is- this isn't good. She keeps doing this, hurting him. The guilt bites at her, her bones hissing in protest.

"Hey." She reaches up, fingers at his chin. Her hand slips down to his neck and she stretches up, kisses him slow and lazy. "I'm kidding. It's a nice thought. Thank you for telling me." She's sure to keep her voice soft, let her love spill through it, pave over the cracks in him.

He's so- strong, but also paper thin. She's already hurt him so badly, made him think she didn't feel the same way, forced him to walk away to save himself having to watch her die again. She can't keep doing this to him or she will lose him and that will break her.

Shit. Even that is so very selfish. She has to stop doing this for _him_. Because she doesn't want him to hurt, because he doesn't deserve all the pain she has inflicted on him.

He kisses her, hovers next to her mouth for a beat. "I want to share with you." He breathes the words against her lips and they curl up at the corners, her smile desperate to fix it. "You know, I used to get home from the precinct and I would want to call you and tell you everything that had happened in the half hour since I saw you."

Oh, Castle. She made him wait for so long. She made him hurt like this for so long, let him yearn for her.

She doesn't know how to respond, tries to string the words she does have together and give him something to echo the beauty of his whispered confession. "We haven't spent even a half hour apart in two weeks."

He stiffens under her. "Do you need space? If you want to go back to your apartment then-"

She kisses him again, plays with the downy hair at the nape of his neck, bumps her nose against his. "No. No, Castle. No, okay. I'm happy here. I want to be here with you."

He pulls his hands out from underneath her shirt. "What about after our summer?" One of his hands comes up to cup her head against him, the other brushing her temple gently.

She twists her head to kiss his fingertips. "Don't think about it. Just- can we just enjoy the moment and not think too far ahead?"

This is so good. Being here in his arms, looking at the stars, his hand warm and soothing against her head, this is what she wanted. This is what she worked for all year in therapy, to be the woman that deserves this.

She's still not sure that she does. She still can't make any definite plans for the future. She hopes he knows that she thinks about it. Yearns for it.

"I can't help it with you. This is so very good and I want to make sure it'll last." He's so apologetic and it just kills her, how guilty he feels for loving her so much.

"It will. Even after the summer, when I get a job or go back to school or whatever, we're not going to change. Even when I go back to my apartment, I'll still be here all the time."

"I want you here all the time." He meets her eyes and she sees it there, what he's really saying. "All the time, Kate."

She raises an eyebrow at him. "Are you asking?"

"Are you saying yes?" His eyes light up and he kisses her forehead, strokes her hair back from her face.

A fist twists in her guts, sharp flickers of guilt low in her stomach. "No. I can't. Not yet. I need to ease into it."

His eyes darken. "I thought you wanted to dive into it." There's a bite to his words that makes her flinch even as he tugs her tighter against him.

She kisses his Adam's apple where it bobs in his throat. "I'm trying. I am, I don't know how else to-"

Her chest heaves against him and she closes her eyes, tries to focus on sucking oxygen down into her desperate lungs. She breathes in through her teeth, out very slowly through her nose. She is so _not_ having a panic attack because he asked her to move in. No way.

He kisses her hair, hands hovering awkwardly like he doesn't know what to do. "I know you are. I'm sorry. You don't have to make any decisions yet. It's okay."

She clenches her fist in his shirt, creasing it. "Rick, I was sleeping really well before." His face drops, an apology already on his lips. She presses her fingers to his mouth, quieting him. "But I missed you. I like falling asleep with you next to me."

He kisses her fingers, rests his forehead against hers. "Okay. Let's get you back to bed."

* * *

He wraps around her in the bed, his knee between her legs, an arm slung over her waist. He buries his face against her neck, presses kisses to the delicate skin there even as he whispers how he loves her. Her whole body thrums with love for him and she feels-

Yeah. Like stardust.


	10. Chapter 10

He needs more from her. Even with her naked body in his arms, it's not enough. It creeps up his spinal cord, twining around it, making him brave. Brave, but maybe stupid too. He can't know.

He has to talk to her, has to make her see how he needs plans. He's too old now to be wasting time, his whole life cast under the shadow of his hourglass. The weight of how little time he has left presses on his lungs and he takes a stuttering breath. He just has to know that they're working towards something.

He needs to talk to her, but he can't - he _can't_ - wake her up for this. Kate hums, shifts in his arms, presses her smile to his skin. He kisses her hair, slides out from underneath her and pulls on pajama pants.

In the kitchen he paces back and forth next to the counter, runs his hands through his hair. He's so afraid of scaring her off, making her run. But he can't just keep going in this weird limbo they have right now, he needs more.

He thinks maybe she came close to having a panic attack last night. He didn't even ask her to move in, not properly, and she almost-

How the hell is he supposed to get anything out of her? She won't actually talk to him about anything, won't think about the future.

He's not asking her to move in, marry him, right now. He doesn't need the action to happen today, he just needs the promise that they'll get there. He needs her to give him that. He thinks that's fair, after all he's given her.

As he turns he sees her from the corner of his eye, swallows. He tries to stand still, finds himself trembling. She comes over to him, laces her hands around his waist and he stiffens.

Her eyes flash with hurt and guilt makes his stomach heavy, makes him shift in discomfort. Inadvertently shifting away from her. She drops her arms, takes a step back. "What's wrong?" Her voice cracks, her hands fists at her sides.

He shakes his head, opens his mouth to tell her he's fine but she interrupts. "Castle. Tell me."

He meets her eyes, watches panic diffuse across them, masking the green. He knows she can read the frustration his own, always has been able to. "I need more from you."

She steps back further, her back almost hitting the counter. "What?"

He rubs his hands over his face, takes a shaky inhalation. "I need to know that we're going somewhere. I need to be working towards something. I want you here, for good. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, Kate. And I need to know that you want that too, that we have the same finish line in sight."

She stands there, frozen, staring at him. He watches her slide under the tidal wave of his confession, struggle for breath. "I- what? Where the hell did that come from?" Her voice is low and steady, chillingly juxtaposed to her eyes, wide with panic.

He groans low in his throat, can't seem to stop his heart from spilling out of his mouth. "Where did it come from? It came from a month of thinking you don't feel the same way. It came from having to walk away so I didn't have to watch you die again. I don't think it's unreasonable of me to feel insecure in this relationship."

She narrows her eyes at him. "Do you really have that little faith in me? Why do you think I'm here? I told you what I want already, Rick." She grips the counter behind her, knuckles white.

He wants to comfort her. He wants to take her in his arms, tell her he's sorry, kiss her until they both forget. But that won't get them anywhere and he just has to know that she's in this.

He pushes his hands into his pockets so his fingers can't reach out to find their natural resting place against her skin without his permission. "I know. I just need an assurance. I love you so much and I've-" he hesitates for a second, decides there's no point holding anything back. She can read it in his eyes anyway. "I've lost you so many times. I need to know it won't happen again."

She moans, a low keening straight from her ribcage, fractured as if the ladder of her ribs broke the sound into separate pieces. "I can't do this right now. I can't-"

She shakes her head, turns and strides out of the kitchen.

* * *

She doesn't leave the loft.

Even though she's mad, her whole body vibrating with how pissed she is, she can't leave. She goes to the bathroom upstairs, locks the door and sinks to the floor, her back against it.

Hot tears slide down her cheeks, her chest heaving. She's not even crying because she's upset, she's just so mad.

It's not at him. She closes her eyes, presses a hand to her chest to help herself focus on breathing and she can eventually suck in enough oxygen to see it. She's not mad at him. She's mad at herself.

She wipes at the salty residue on her cheeks, her skin tight with it. Rests her head back against the door.

She's mad because she wants, so badly, to be good enough for him. To be what he deserves. And she just- she isn't.

Her heart thumps wildly against her ribcage. She doesn't understand it. She knows she wants him. She knows he's her – how did she phrase it? Her one and done. Why is it so hard to get the words past the stubborn barrier of her throat?

She doesn't know. How could she? It's an unknowable thing, this between them. She doesn't understand how it's so easy and so difficult at the same time. She stands up, her legs suddenly not willing to hold her. She growls, tries to ignore the fact that she sounds wild, she sounds like an animal.

She knows how to deal with her body giving up on her. She had no choice but to get used to it.

She forces herself to unlock the door, go and find him. He's still in the kitchen, pacing again.

He sees her and she hesitates for a second, tries to quiet the rush of terror pounding in her veins. And then she's running down the rest of the stairs and into his arms. She reaches up to cup his cheeks in her palms, his stubble harsh against the fragile skin. She opens her mouth to tell him she's sorry but it's too much, it's too similar to that night almost a month ago now. So she kisses him.

He kisses her back, bruising and desperate and fierce, marking her with his love. He pulls back and she doesn't give him a chance to speak. "It's you. That's what I'm working towards, that's my long term plan. A life with you."

He kisses her again, pulls her tight against him. "Promise me."

She rests her head against his shoulder, suddenly timid. "I promise. That's where I want to be. With you."


	11. Chapter 11

She's bored. Well, okay, no. She's not _bored_, exactly. She's just never been much good at doing nothing. Even before her mother's murder, she'd always had some sort of project, something to work towards. And now nothing.

She's restless, can't stop tapping her foot on the floor even as she watches Castle make breakfast. He turns the burner off underneath the pancakes, slides them onto a plate and comes around to sit next to her.

His hand falls to her knee, stilling her. "What is it? Why are you jigging?"

She meets his eyes for a second, bites her lip and looks down at their breakfast. The understanding, the concern on his face is just too much. "I feel restless."

He tucks her hair behind her ear, leaves his fingers against her cheek for a moment. "Okay."

She looks back at him, shrugs. "I don't know. We made promises for the future, but I don't want my whole life to be about you."

His eyes flash with hurt. "Thanks."

She flinches at the bite in his voice, the acerbic edge that cuts straight through to her tender, aching heart. She reaches out to squeeze his fingers. "Hey, not what I meant. You're-" she shakes her head, closes her eyes for a second. "Of course I want to share my life with you, I just feel like I need something else. I don't want you to replace my job. I don't want you to be a crutch. I feel like I need to _do_ something, you know?"

He smiles, laces their fingers together. "Okay. I get it. Now eat your pancakes."

* * *

She closes the door, leans back against it, her chest heaving against the confines of her sports bra. It's really, really hot outside, felt like running through water, the air too heavy. She wipes a hand across her forehead, brushes her hair off of her face.

She feels good, endorphins humming in her bloodstream. She bounces a little on her toes, doesn't want her calves to cramp. It's been too long since she ran properly, almost three weeks now, and it was tough.

Tough, but now she's worked up, raring to go. She needs to find Castle. A bead of sweat slides down the curve of her breast and she shudders. Yeah, she _really _needs to find Castle.

* * *

He looks up when he hears her, hitting the keyboard shortcut to save his document and closing his laptop. "Hi, good run?"

She beams at him, comes over to stand between his legs, her hands in his hair. "Uhuh. Felt good to push myself. And I saw something."

He raises an eyebrow at her, his hands drawn to her hips without conscious thought. He just – when she's sweaty and her chest heaves as she breathes and she smiles at him like that – he can't stop touching her. "What'd you see?"

She straddles his thighs, sinks down into his lap and oh, _shit_, his mind goes blank. She closes her lips around the lobe of his ear and sucks and oh, God help him, he doesn't care what she saw anymore. He wants to see _her_. In his shower. Right now.

* * *

Afterwards, they have lunch at his kitchen counter. Just sandwiches and a shared bag of chips but it's so very domestic and his poor heart can't swallow it, won't allow him to concentrate on anything. Except the way the sunlight streams through the window onto her, casting random strands of her hair into gold, a fluid outline of light around her face. She's luminescent and beautiful and he still can't believe she's here.

She swallows a mouthful of her food, grins at him and then brings her hand up to cover it. He can still see her teeth, the stretch of her lips through the gaps between her slender fingers. "You distracted me. I was telling you what I saw."

He laughs. "I distracted you? Says the woman who straddled my thighs and draped her deliciously sweaty self all over me?"

She grins slowly, bites her lip likes she's trying not to smile but she just can't help it and it fills him up, spills out of him. "I love you, Kate. Do tell."

Her eyes soften at the edges and she puts her sandwich down, brushes her fingers together to dispel the crumbs from them. She links her fingers and drops her clasped hands to her lap, turning on her stool to face him.

"Okay, so I was jogging in the park and this flyer got caught in a breeze and flew up and stuck to my face." She lets out a soft hum of laughter, warm and fresh like summer rain, at the memory. He joins her, grinning, incapacitated by her easy amusement. "I pulled it off and I was just going to toss it in the nearest trashcan but it caught my eye and I read it."

She pauses, takes a deep breath in as she beams, her happiness pouring out of her eyes. He waits patiently, lets her have her moment. "It's to volunteer to play and read with elementary school kids whose parents work in the summer. They need one-on-one time with a caring mentor apparently."

His mouth drops open and she grins, pushes a chip past his lips. He snaps his jaw shut, crunches it, swallows hard. "Kate-"

"I know I don't really have experience with kids or anything but… I want to do something different. I've seen such awful things, had such a dark job for so long. This would be so different. I really want to do it." She looks down at her hands, suddenly nervous.

He reaches out to tip her chin up, have her meet his eyes. "It sounds amazing. I think you'll love it."

She grins, kisses his fingertips, unclasps her hands to hold his. "You think I should go for it?"

He holds up her sandwich for her to take a bite from, watches her chew for a moment while he organizes his words in his head. "I think this is exactly what you need. Something with structure but not long term commitment, something to fill your time while I'm writing, something just as worthwhile as what you were doing before, but in a totally different way."

She swallows, jumps up from her stool to snag the flyer from the fridge. "It would be from ten until one, so not a huge chunk of the day but enough time for you to get some work done. Only Monday, Wednesday and Friday, too."

He takes the flyer from her outstretched hand, scans it. She nudges at his hip with hers. He turns to her, has to laugh at the childish delight on her face. "Good. So we can still have lazy mornings four days a week." He makes his eyebrows dance at her, leers just a little bit.

She rolls her eyes, swats at his chest. "Is that all you think about?"

He wraps his hands around her waist, pulls her against him, his arms sliding up to pin her chest to his. He finds her ear, traces the shell of it with his tongue. "Four years, I wanted you. Four years, I waited. It's not all I think about, but it's what I'm thinking about a lot of the time. We have some catching up to do."

Her eyes swim with sorrow, regret heavy at the corners of her mouth. He kisses her there, feathers his lips up to her temple. She turns her head to bump her nose against his. "I'm sorry."

He brings his hand up to rest against her neck, his thumb stroking at her jaw. "Don't be."

She slides her hand into his back pocket, fingers cool and slender, making him shudder. "I wanted you too. But I wanted this more."

He kisses the end of her nose, chuckling softly as her eyelids flutter. "Call them, Kate. Tell them you'll do it."

She grins, bright and happy. "Okay. I will."

"Great."

She kisses the hollow at the base of his throat. "Suprasternal notch."

He pulls back, grins at her. "What?"

She kisses the same spot again, darts her tongue past her lips to taste him. "That's what this spot is called."

He laughs, slides one hand up to rest against the back of her head. "By all means, please continue your exploration of my suprasternal notch."

She's laughing even as her teeth nip at him, testing the fragility of his skin.


	12. Chapter 12

She gets to wake him up. For only maybe the third or fourth time in their month of being together.

It's odd, actually. She doesn't usually sleep that much, her job not affording her the opportunity to settle into a regular sleeping pattern. And Castle's a heavy sleeper, a late riser. Only, he's been waking up before her a lot lately.

She hasn't had a break in thirteen years, has a lot of sleep to catch up on. She wants to cite that as the reason, but she knows. She does.

He hasn't been sleeping because he's worried. About her, Cole Maddox is still out there after all. And about them. About whether she's in this, whether she's sticking around.

And now, after she's started to climb out of the limbo of the past month. Now she has something worthwhile to do with her time, now that she's promised him she's staying, he's sleeping peacefully.

She swallows the lump of guilt in her throat, moves to lean over him. He sleeps on his stomach, his back deliciously naked and exposed to her, the sheets slung low on his hips. She braces her hands on either side of him, presses an open-mouthed line of kisses down the ridge of his vertebrae, a mountain range for her exploration.

He groans, turns his head to press his face into the pillow and she laughs quietly. She presses gently on his sacrum, kneads outwards with her fingertips from there to the flare of his hips. He rolls over and blinks up at her, smiles lazily.

She climbs onto the bed, straddles his thighs, smirks as his eyes widen. "Morning."

He rubs his hands in his eyes, blinks up at her. "Christ, Kate. Are you trying to kill me?"

She runs her hands up his chest, her fingertips coming to rest in the dip of his clavicles. "No, I'm trying to wake you up."

He groans, struggles to sit up and tugs her against his chest. "It's working," he grins, and then he's kissing her, his hands running across the bare skin of her shoulders. He pulls back to look at her, his eyes flitting over her body. "You're wearing a dress."

She kisses the little dimple on his chin, can't resist the way he looks like a little boy in the mornings. Even with the scattering of stubble across his jaw, he somehow manages to look so very youthful and it just makes her heart swell with love for him.

She tucks an errant curl behind her ear. "Yeah. It's sunny out, I want to enjoy it."

He wraps his hands around her waist, his warmth lovely at her ribcage. "Oh, you do?"

She shrugs. "I never get to enjoy the weather, there's always a case. But now-"

"No case." He jumps in and relief swamps her. The words taste bitter on her tongue; she'd rather not talk about it. "Okay, let me get dressed and then we'll go get coffee and hit the park. Sound good?"

Coffee in the park with him? "Yeah. Sounds great."

* * *

She's at his back the whole time he's getting dressed, hurrying him along. Only, when she presses the long and beautiful line of her body to his back like that? Yeah, it doesn't exactly make him want to leave the bedroom.

He nudges her away from him so he can pull on a shirt. When his head clears the hole she's leaning against the doorframe, watching him. Her face is soft with love for him, with contentment, and his heart falls into a staccato pound against his ribcage.

Now that she's not touching him, he can get a good look at her dress. It's navy blue, knee length. Deliciously not Beckett but he thinks, very Kate. She catches him looking, grins. Does a little spin on the spot and the dress flares out around her knees. "Like it?"

His heart sticks in his throat and he's helpless, can only take her in his arms and kiss her, tender and soft. He pulls back, tucks her hair behind her ear. "Yeah."

She grins, slides her hand up his bicep as she steps around him to grab sunglasses from the dresser. She hands him a pair, slides her own on top of her head.

He watches her as she checks her purse to make sure she has everything. He can't remember ever seeing her carry a purse before. But then, there are most definitely no pockets in this dress. Once she's satisfied, she closes the zipper and holds out her hand for him.

He takes it, laces their fingers together and squeezes. Gives a gentle tug on her hand to pull her against his side. He kisses her cheek, overcome with gratitude for this woman. "You look beautiful."

She blushes, turns her head away from him to hide her smile. "Thank you. Let's go."

* * *

She gets to buy him coffee. She hands it to him with a flourish, watches the way his thick fingers wrap around the travel cup. He takes a sip with his eyes closed, hums his appreciation. "Rick."

His eyes flutter open and he smiles at her. "Yeah?"

She gestures to his cup. "First of a hundred."

He comes for her, wraps an arm low around her waist. "I was just trying to make you smile. You don't owe me anything."

She rests her hand over his chest, feels his heart thud beneath her palm. They both know that's not true. She owes him her life, her heart, her happiness. She presses her open mouth to his neck, darts the tip of her tongue out to taste his jugular. "I want to. A hundred coffees."

He knows better than to argue with her, just brushes his fingers over the back of her head for a second and then takes her hand in his again.

* * *

The park is crowded. The combination of the weekend and the hot weather makes the people of New York spill out onto the grass like the city is overflowing.

The two of them wind down the path around the lake, watching the boats on the water and the children splashing around in the shallow edges. She sees a young couple sharing a blanket and an iPod, his arms around her, holding her to his chest.

Kate turns to look at Rick from the corner of her eye. He darts in to kiss her cheek, pulls back, his face awash with adoration. It hits her out of the blue. That's them, the couple on the grass and the elderly couple taking a breather on a bench and the worn out looking parents of two boisterous children.

Lovers.

She beams, the sun and the warmth of his hand in hers making her feel languid and sated. "I told you this was a good idea."

He hums his agreement. "I never had any doubt."

They carry on walking, not needing words. There's so much noise that Kate doesn't think they need to contribute, is happy to communicate everything with the grip of their hands.

As they round the bend, a little boy, maybe five years old, runs across the path. He trips on something, goes sprawling to the ground. His cries are immediate and _loud_, ripping through the harmony of the boats and the music and the people.

Kate waits for a second to see if the boy's parents appear but no one does. She pulls her hand free from Rick's, crouches down on the path next to the boy where he sits, face red with pain and indignation.

He looks up at her and another tear rolls down his face. "Hi sweetheart, I'm Kate. What's your name?"

The boy sniffs, lets out a shuddering breath. "Caleb." He looks down at his knees, skinned and bleeding from the fall, and a fresh wave of tears spill from him.

"Okay Caleb. Are your mommy and daddy near here? Can you see them?" She looks around, but there's still no sign of anyone who knows this child. Only Castle, watching her with wide eyes and a soft smile.

The boy shakes his head. "No. I runned away from daddy. I chased a squirrel."

Kate smiles. "Okay buddy, let's see if we can find your daddy." She gets to her feet, holds out a hand for Caleb and he takes it, struggling up.

Kate leads him over to Castle. "Caleb, this is Rick. We'll help you find your daddy."

She shoots him a look to check that's okay and he nods, grins at her and then crouches down to meet the little boy's eyes. "Hi there. Do you remember where Daddy was before?"

Caleb looks around, points in the direction he'd been running from. Kate sees a man in his late thirties jogging towards them and smiles with relief. The guy reaches them and lifts his son into his arms, cradling him close to his body. "Caleb, thank God. Where'd you go, little man?"

The boy nuzzles his face into his father's neck. "There was a squirrel, Daddy."

The man laughs, his relief tangible. He turns to Kate and Castle, extends a hand to shake theirs. "Sorry about that. I was chatting to a friend and he just bolted. Thanks for looking after him."

Castle smiles warmly at him. "No problem, my daughter was a nightmare at that age."

The man laughs and his gaze flits between the two of them. "Well, better get back to the picnic huh, Caleb?"

The little boy squeals something about cake into the side of his father's face and the man grins at his son, walks away.

Castle watches them go and then turns to Kate, pulls her against his chest and buries his face in her hair. "I love you."

She smiles against his jaw, kisses him softly. "You okay?"

He presses his mouth to hers for a moment. "Yeah. You definitely picked the right thing to volunteer for."

She smiles against his lips. "I volunteer as tribute."

He laughs at that, shows his teeth. Only, when he meets her eyes, he's not laughing. He's tender and beautiful and it makes her chest ache. "You're going to be so good at this."

She doesn't know if he means the volunteer work or further into the future. If he's thinking of little Castle babies with green eyes. Either way, she hopes he's right.


	13. Chapter 13

He's tugged into consciousness by the smell of her. Fresh from a shower, her hair falling in gentle curls that smell like sunshine and a fruit he can't identify, still mostly asleep. He cracks one eye open, sees her smiling at him in fragments, the black of his eyelashes cutting her into strips.

He decides she's worth the assault of the sun on his retinas and opens both eyes to look at her. He scrunches his nose up to try and offer his eyes some protection, grunts in protest. She laughs quietly at him, hums her amusement. "I'm going."

He reaches his hand out to snag her wrist. "What? Why?" A rush of shame shoots through him at the panic in his voice but he can't help it. She can't leave him. She can't. It's been only a month, and already he doesn't know how to function without her.

She raises an eyebrow at him, pulls her wrist from his grasp. "It's Monday."

It hits him, then, and he flushes. Right. Of course. Monday.

Her first day volunteering with the kids in need. He goes to sit up but she pins him in place with a hand at his shoulder. "Uh huh. Don't get up. I just wanted to say goodbye."

He groans, reaches up and wraps his hand around the back of her neck so he can tug her into him. She goes willingly, her lips soft and pliant against his. She's laughing as she pulls back. "Don't make me late on the first day. Jeez. I'll be back by one thirty."

He catches her wrist again and kisses her palm, grinning as she closes her fingers onto it. Treasuring his kiss. "Have fun. You'll be amazing."

She laughs again, but she's blushing too. She professes not to like it when he compliments her, but he knows she loves his words. She has a shelf full of them at her apartment, after all.

She slides out of the room and he pulls the comforter up around his shoulders again, closes his eyes. The smell of her chases him back into sleep.

* * *

She's shaking by the time she gets off the subway. She spent the whole ride checking over her shoulder for assassins out to get her. Her heart hammers against her ribcage and her knees keep giving, refusing to cooperate. But she makes it off the carriage.

On the platform, she can hide easily among the throng of people. The adrenaline leaves her bloodstream in waves and she has to take a deep breath to center herself.

She can do this.

The day care centre is near to the subway station; it only takes her a couple of minutes and then she's there.

She swallows the sudden rush of anxiety, chokes back the solid mass in her throat and opens the door.

An African American woman, maybe fifty, looks up at the sound of the door opening. She beams, puts her pen down and comes around the desk to wrap her arms around Kate. She freezes, stiff and unresponsive in this stranger's embrace.

The woman pulls back and grins at her. "You must be Kate? I'm Iris and I run this place."

Beckett forces herself to smile, tries to push the tension from her shoulders. "Yeah, we spoke on the phone."

The woman, Iris, laughs again, bright and happy. The place is in need of renovation, looks like it's giving up, but the strength of this woman's character carries it.

"Okay Kate. Well, we thought that we'd assign you to Rueben. He's five, and his Mom works full time to support the two of them. I'll take you through." Kate watches Iris carefully, sees her sympathy for the boy flood her eyes, rich and expressive chocolate.

Iris opens a door and holds it for Kate. She steps through, tries to project a confidence she doesn't feel.

Sure, she was confident working homicide, in such a male dominated environment. But she'd built up to that, had known what she was doing. Here, she's going in blind, no idea what to expect, and it kills her.

She wants to be good at this. She wants, so badly, to impress Iris and the other volunteers. And she hates – she _hates_ – not being good at things she tries.

Iris leads Kate down a corridor to a room filled with noise. The joyous giggles of the twelve children Iris said have places here wrap around Kate, drawing her in. she steps through the door and stands still, watching. All but two of the children have an adult volunteer with them. An elderly gentleman is reading to two little girls who sport identical blond curls and wide blue eyes. A woman, perhaps in her mid twenties, runs across the room, chased by a little boy who waves a pillow and shrieks.

Iris makes her way back over to Kate, leading a little boy by the hand. His gaze is focused on the floor, only serving to highlight the thick black expanse of his eyelashes. His skin is coffee coloured, hair in thick chocolate curls. Iris bends down next to the boy. "Rueben, this is Kate. She's going to spend some time with you, is that okay?"

He looks up at Kate and she has to fight to breathe. His eyes are intense, like moss and bark flecked with gold, and so wise that it knocks all the oxygen from her lungs. She bends down next to Rueben and extends her hand for him to shake. He takes it, his palm warm and soft against hers.

Kate smiles. "Hey, nice to meet you, Rueben. Can I tell you something?"

The little boy nods, still silent. She's glad. She doesn't deal all that well with noise, doesn't think she could handle a boisterous child. But this boy, who clearly revels in quiet, she knows how to deal with.

"My name's not actually Kate. It's Katherine. People just call me Kate. But that means that you can call me whatever you like. You could even call me Beckett if you wanted, that's my last name." She's not sure why she's telling the kid this, only she feels like he should get to decide.

He smiles and his whole face lights up. "I like Kate. It's pretty."

She's not blushing at a compliment from a five year old. She's not.

"Okay. Am I okay to call you Rueben or would you like me to call you something else?" He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, the smooth skin between his eyebrows creasing as he thinks.

He meets Kate's eyes. "Mommy sometimes calls me Rue."

* * *

Rick throws his head back, laughs out loud. "Seriously?"

Kate throws the cushion she'd been clutching to her chest at his face. "Yeah. I almost cried on the poor kid. Damn Hunger Games."

He laughs again, can't help it. She looks so disgruntled, but behind it she's so happy that she glows with it. "I didn't know you'd read those."

She shrugs. "Alexis lent them to me, said they were good. She was right."

He crawls across the couch to her, wraps her up in his arms and eases her to lie down next to him. "Tell me about the rest of it." He kisses her cheek, rests his chin on her shoulder.

She sighs contentedly, beaming again. "God, Rick, it was so great. I read to him for a bit and then we built a tower. Did some drawing. He's so smart, and so quiet and shy, and beautiful."

Castle laughs, tightens his arm around her waist. "I'm glad he's five, or I would be so jealous right now."

She cranes her neck to meet his eyes, press her lips to his. "Mm, good job he's just a kid then."

He tries, he really does, but he knows Kate can see the doubt in his eyes. She rolls over in the circle of his arms, kisses him slow and hot and right. "Hey," she rests her fingertips at his jaw, "even if he was a grown man, I wouldn't- there's no one else. No one else but you."

He rests his forehead against hers, his hands winding their way underneath her shirt. "I know. I'm being an idiot."

She fists her hands in the cotton over his heart, uses the leverage to push her hips closer to his. "Not an idiot. Just mine."

He growls, pushes her onto her back and settles himself between her thighs, kisses a searing trail down her neck to her clavicle. "Yeah. Yours."

By the time she's done, he is _thoroughly_ convinced that he's all she wants.


	14. Chapter 14

She can go straight in the next time. Iris barely even glances at her, flutters her fingers at Kate in a half-hearted approximation of a wave. The woman is busy; trying to work out a schedule so the center can care for more children. There are so many that need it, so few volunteers.

Pride surges in her chest. This, what she's doing, it's good. It's a wholly different sort of good to what she did before, but it's no less rewarding.

Rueben looks up when she enters the room, smiles at her, but he doesn't move. In the little time she spent with him, he never once made the first move, quite content to leave their activities to her control.

She makes her way over to where he's sitting on the floor, kneels down next to him. "Hey there Rueben. How are you today?"

The boy looks up at her and beams, a full row of milky baby teeth displayed for Kate's approval. "I'm good." She grins too, can't help it. He's just-

He's so _cute_. "That's great. What do you want to do today buddy?"

He looks around the room, taking his time to thoroughly survey each of the other children and their activities. Most of them are playing with blocks or Legos. His gaze falls on the bookshelf and he smiles again, turns to her.

He doesn't say anything, his beautiful eyes heavy with expectation. It takes her a second and then she works it out. "You wanna read something?"

He nods, jumps up and hurries over to the bookshelf.

* * *

"Hey Dad." His daughter slides into the kitchen, her fuzzy socks allowing her to skid across the tile. He looks up from the vegetables he's chopping, grins at her.

"Hey pumpkin," he puts down the knife, moves the chopping board onto a different counter so her favorite seat at the island is clear. "You okay?"

She settles onto the stool, casts a glance around the living area. "Mm. Where's Kate?"

He has to face a particularly challenging carrot, pushes on the knife with the heel of his palm. It gives with a crack, sounds so much like a gunshot that his heart pounds against his ribcage; he feels his pulse thumping in his veins. "At her volunteer placement."

There's silence from his daughter, he looks at her and she's frowning at him, her mouth turned down at the corners. "Her what?"

Ah. Okay. Maybe Kate and Alexis don't talk as much as he would like. "She not tell you? She's volunteering at a kind of day care center three days a week, just to fill her time. Give me time to write."

Alexis laughs, comes around to him and takes the knife from his hand. "This isn't writing, Dad. She's giving you time to work, don't find other ways to procrastinate."

He shifts out of the way, lets her take over the chopping. "She's not just giving me time for work. She wants me to spend time with you. She thinks time apart is healthy."

Alexis pushes the carrots to one side, starts on a broccoli. "What do you think?"

He knows Kate's right. He knows it's important that both of them maintain their ability to exist independently of one another. He knows she's desperate not to let him become her crutch; warp their relationship into one where she needs him just to function.

Not that he'd mind. Not at all. To be the one Kate Beckett chooses to lean on is an honor he knows he doesn't deserve.

He swallows, turns around to lean against the counter. "I think she's right. It's important that I spend time with you. And it's important I don't spend too much time with her."

All the tension seems to drain from his daughter's shoulders. She looks back down at the food, that slow, pleased grin spreading across her face. It worries him. He wants, more than anything, for the two most important people in his life to get along.

"Alexis, you don't think I'm spending too much time with her do you?"

She shrugs, tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. It reminds him so much of Kate that he's momentarily breathless, arrested by his love for the two of them, his need for them to get along. "I don't know. I mean, when was the last time she slept at home?"

"Four nights ago." It falls off his tongue without his permission, the memory of a night spent in his too cold, too empty bed loosening his tongue.

She sighs at him, so grown up that it makes his lungs hurt, makes the back of his eyes sting. "Right. But it's been a month and she's spent maybe five nights total at home."

He wants, so badly, to correct her. Tell her that Kate's home is here, with him. But that would contradict everything he's trying to do with this conversation so he clenches his fists, lets her finish.

"I just don't really- I don't like that you're so clingy with her. What if it doesn't work out? Already, you don't know what to do with yourself when she's not here. I won't be around either for much longer. What then?" She blinks, taken aback by her own torrent of words.

He reaches out, rests his hand on his daughter's upper arm. "I know. It's okay, though. Kate's not going to let that happen to us."

Alexis runs a hand through her hair, pushing it away from her face. "It shouldn't just be her responsibility to make sure you guys don't crash and burn, Dad."

"Alexis," his voice comes out angrier than he intended and her head snaps up to look at him. "I'm not leaving it all to her. I'm trying."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna need to. You've never actually had a normal, healthy relationship before."

He opens his mouth to argue with her, closes it when he realises that she's right. He moves to hug her, guilt rushing in his veins. This is what he's exposed her to, his warped relationship, his feeble attempt at a life.

She buries her nose against his collar bone and he wraps his arms around her, strokes his hand across the back of her head over and over the way he used to when he had to settle her as a baby.

"Pumpkin, I promise, I'll do everything I can not to screw this up. Kate is- Kate's it. She's my chance to get it right." He presses a kiss to her hair, pushes her gently away, hands spanning her upper arms. "You wanna help me finish cooking?"

She nods, turns back to the carrots with renewed vigor, and he turns the heat on under his pot, chokes back the stupid rush of proud tears that burn the back of his throat.

* * *

Rueben burrows down into her, his eyelids too heavy. His lashes brush his cheeks with every blink. His mouth opens in a perfect circle, a silent yawn. He shifts where he sits on her lap, his little body cradled in her crossed legs.

Kate tightens her arm around him, positions the book with her other. She carries on reading until he grows heavy in her lap, his body lax with sleep.

She's been looking for something to give Castle, a promise for the future. And she knows, now.

She wants kids. And she wants them to have his joy, his playfulness, the fiercely protective way he loves. His heart.

She wants kids with Richard Castle. Jesus. And she's going to _tell him_.


	15. Chapter 15

Kate's been jittery and nervous all evening. She wouldn't meet his gaze all through dinner, spent the whole time talking to his daughter. And of course, yeah, that's good. He's glad she's bonding with Alexis. It just makes him uncomfortable.

She's so confident and self assured and it freaks him out, nervous, insecure Kate.

He can see the reflection of her pacing back and forth in the bathroom. He's distracted momentarily by the glory of her naked body before he decides he has to do something. He sighs, wipes his hand down his face. "Kate, love, come to bed. You're making me nervous."

She comes into the bedroom, smiling sheepishly. "You okay?"

She shrugs, climbs underneath the covers and shifts over to him. "M' fine."

She stretches the long and beautiful line of her body out against him, her naked skin sending electricity across his at every point of contact. She presses her nose to the side of his neck, her chin tucking in at his clavicle.

He wraps his arm around her stomach, tugs her closer. He'll never get enough of this, the feeling of her skin against him, her body sated and heavy. She presses her open mouth to him, trails it down his ribs, laughing as his skin erupts in goose bumps. He tugs her up to meet his mouth, slides his tongue along the seam of her lips.

She opens for him but she's smiling, and then he is too, and their teeth bump and he can't kiss her properly. He pulls away, kisses her eyelid, marvels at the way the translucent skin flutters under his mouth. "What are you grinning at? I can't kiss you properly when your teeth are in the way."

She laughs, rests her cheek against his pectoral. "I realised something when I was with Rue yesterday."

He presses a sentry row of kisses to the pale line of her scalp, brushes his lips at her temple. "Oh?"

She rolls over onto her stomach, rests her hands on his sternum and props her chin up on them, meets his eyes. Hers are so very green, it leaves him breathless. "I want kids."

He smiles at her, cups her cheek in his palm. She tilts her head to push against his hand and a rush of love for her shoots through him, flutters low in his stomach. "I know. I remember seeing you with Angela Candela, Tyler Donegal. You were so good with them; I could tell you'll be an amazing mother."

She grips his shoulders, pulls herself up his body so she can rest her forehead against his. "No, I mean with you. I want kids with you."

He feels her whole body tense up as she speaks, knows what a big deal this is for her to admit, but it's like he's observing her without actually seeing anything. His vision has blacked out, white noise rushing in his ears. She wants kids with him.

Kate wants kids. With him.

He swallows the sudden lump of hot, ridiculous tears in his throat, beams at her. "You don't have to make any more promises, Kate. It's okay."

She rolls her eyes at him, bites at his bottom lip. "I wanted to tell you. I just thought you should know."

He sucks her bottom lip into his mouth for a second, lets her go, questions burning his tongue. "Are you sure?"

She rolls off his chest, tucks herself into his side again, her arm tight across his stomach. "Yeah. I want them to have your playfulness, the way you find fun in things. And your heart, how deeply you love."

He's trembling now, his adrenal glands kicked into overdrive by her admission. He feels-

Yeah, wired. He doesn't know what to do with himself. "Shh, Kate, please. Shh."

She tries to pull away and he rolls onto his side, wraps both his arms around her. She bites her lip, casts her gaze down, refuses to meet his eyes. "Sorry. I just assumed, but I guess you have Alexis and-"

He kisses her, full and intense, pushing her into the mattress, his weight settling between her legs. "Not what I meant. You have to stop talking or I'm either going to cry or demand that we start trying to get you pregnant right now."

She looks at him, a slow grin spreading across her face. She looks so very pleased with herself, deliciously devious. "We could always practise."

She shifts her hips and he's suddenly reminded of their proximity. He kisses her again, soft presses of his lips to the corners of her mouth. "Seriously, Kate. Kids with you? That's- there's nothing I want more."

All the tension drains out of her and she's loose and liquid under him. "I'm not saying right now. But someday, yeah. Little Castle babies." She laughs, her cheeks heating.

"Ha!" He laughs and her eyebrows shoot up. "I knew it! You know, when your friend accused you of wanting Castle babies in that interrogation, I did notice you didn't deny it."

She rolls her eyes. "It's not worth arguing with Maddie, but I really didn't like you all that much then. You'd just been on a date with her and-"

She arches her neck, kisses him, but now he's intrigued. "You were jealous?"

She blinks slowly, chews on her lip. "Huh. I guess I kinda was."

He rests his forehead against hers, nuzzles at her nose. "Hey. I'm sorry. If I'd known, I wouldn't have gone out with her."

She shrugs. "Wasn't ready back then. But I don't regret anything. Nothing you did, nothing I did."

He raises an eyebrow and she reaches up to press her fingertips to it. "Really, not even Gina round two?"

She pushes her hips against his, grins. "No. Everything that happened led us here. How could I have regrets?"

He snakes a hand underneath her back, pulls her torso up to meet his, her breasts flattening against his chest. "You're right. No regrets. This is so good."

He kisses her again, slides his tongue into the wet heat of her beautiful, gorgeous mouth. Rolls onto his back and tugs her to straddle his lap. She leans forward, rests her forehead against his chin. "Hey, thanks for not making a big deal about it."

He grins, ghosts his hands up the bare skin of her sides. "I'm squealing inside a little bit. But you don't deserve to be subjected to that."

She sits up, lifts herself slightly so he can cross his legs and then sinks down onto his lap. He sits up too, wraps his arms around her and cradles her against his chest. "Thank you for giving me the future. I love you."

She grins, kisses his bottom lip. "Love you too."


	16. Chapter 16

She wakes up early the next morning, the rain falling outside thunders onto the pavement and rouses her. The sky is gray and foggy, an aura of mystery that she adores. It reminds her of old detective novels, Holmes and Dupin and Marlowe.

She slides out of bed, wanting tea and a book and to curl up on his couch, watch the weather through the enormous windows of his loft. She pulls on a jeans and a turtle neck, runs her hands through her hair and tugs on a pair of his socks. It's pleasantly cold in his loft, the brutal weather seeping through the walls just enough to necessitate sweaters and thick socks and warmth.

She closes the bedroom door very quietly, goes through to the kitchen. She fills the kettle, sets it on to boil and goes into his office to choose a book. She's feeling Victorian London today, the fog as much a part of the stories as the victims. Rick had seemed surprised that she still wanted to read detective novels, remarking that he thought she'd put that part of her life behind her. She'd brushed him off, not wanting to talk about it.

She knows he's going to push her into it one of these days, going to sit her down and make her talk about her resignation, why it came about and whether it's a permanent thing. She really, seriously doesn't want to talk about it. She will, of course, when he makes her, but she's not going to be the one to initiate that conversation.

The kettle begins to rock in its foundation and she goes back to the kitchen, finds a mug and a teabag as she waits for the water to finish. She pours it into the mug, closes her eyes and breathes deeply, the scent of the tea already calming her. She looks out the pot of sugar, goes to get milk from the fridge.

"Oh, Kate, you're up."

Alexis' voice makes her startle so violently that she drops the milk, watches frozen as it spills across the floor. It's like a crime scene in negative, the slate gray of his tile marred by the creamy liquid.

She grabs a cloth from the counter, crouches down. "Shit." She rights the carton, starts wiping at the milk. Alexis rounds the counter, bends next to her. "Sorry."

The girl picks up the carton, puts it on the counter. "Sorry I startled you." She smiles but it's weak, doesn't reach the eyes so startling like her father's.

Kate smiles self-deprecatingly. "That's okay. I startle pretty easily after-"

She cuts herself off, not sure how comfortable the girl will be with gallows humor. It's how she deals with it, how most cops deal with it. Rick hates it, needs her to let him be serious, let him feel so deeply for her.

Alexis coughs, brushes her hair behind her ear. "After you were shot."

Kate meets her eyes, can't quite bring herself to smile. "Yeah." She straightens, drops the sodden cloth in the sink. "You're up early. Want tea?"

Alexis picks at a split end of her hair, shrugs. "I haven't been sleeping so well lately. Stress. And yeah, please."

Kate rummages in the cupboard, finds another mug and teabag, pours water into the girl's cup for her. "Stress? But you've graduated now; you don't have any exams to worry about right?"

Alexis sinks onto a barstool, pulls the mug towards her and shoots Kate a look that's laden with gratitude but also a patronising sort of sympathy, like Kate couldn't possibly understand the trials and tribulations of being a teenage girl.

She takes a deep breath, tries to remember what she was like at eighteen. She remembers feeling like every decision was monumental, like her whole life was changing. And then, of course, it did, and college and boy troubles faded into obscurity.

Alexis takes a sip of her drink with her eyes closed. "Not exam stress. College, the future." She opens her eyes to look at Kate. "Dad."

Kate puts the milk back in the fridge, moves around to sit next to the girl. "You're worried about your dad?"

Alexis sighs, turns on her stool to face Kate. "Yeah. This whole thing between you makes me nervous. I don't want him to get hurt, especially since I'll be leaving and he'll be here alone."

Kate jumps in, can't help herself. "He won't be alone."

Alexis takes another sip of her drink, both hands wrapped around it like a lifeline, and Kate decides that the two of them need to have a serious talk. She's reassured Castle of her intentions, made him see that she's sticking around, but he comes as a package deal. She's never sat down with his daughter and appeased her, and clearly she should have.

Yeah, they should talk. Only, she doesn't want to do it here. She knows it's childish, but she could do without Alexis having a home field advantage for this conversation. "Hey, would you like to go get breakfast somewhere? I'm pretty hungry but I don't want to cook."

She shoots for light-hearted laughter, falls more on the side of rippling anxiety. Alexis raises an eyebrow but shrugs. "Sure. I'll go get dressed and find some umbrellas. You'd better tell Dad."

* * *

"Castle," she bends over him, presses her open mouth to his scapula, "wake up for a second."

He grunts and she presses her fingers to her lips, holding in her laughter. He rolls over and squints up at her. "S'up babe?"

She rolls her eyes at the moniker. "I'm going out for breakfast with your daughter."

He blinks, a furrow between his eyebrows. "Alexis?"

She rolls her eyes again, grins and rests two fingers at his jaw for balance so she can lean in to kiss him. "No, your other daughter."

He nods, arches his neck to chase her lips. "Oh, Johanna." He looks at her, the haze of his dream catching in his eyes.

She goes cold all over, the blood draining away until she can't feel her fingers, can't lift them from his face. She opens her mouth but can't form words, can only whimper.

He circles her wrist with his fingers, peels her hand from his jaw. "Okay beautiful, have fun," and then he rolls back over and he's out.

She watches him for a moment, dumbstruck, and then she swallows hard and walks away, goes to find Alexis.

* * *

Kate insists on paying, tells her to order whatever she wants, so she gets waffles adorned with fresh fruit.

The detective, or, well, ex-detective, has the decency to wait for their food to arrive before she starts the conversation Alexis has been dreading for over a year now.

Kate swallows a mouthful of her pancake, fixes Alexis with her steely gaze. Alexis straightens her spine, refuses to wilt under the well-practised stare. "Alexis, I know I've never given you a reason to believe me, but you have to trust me when I say that I'm not going to hurt your father."

Alexis takes a sip of her drink, folds her hands in her lap. "Actually, I don't have to trust you. I've only ever seen you hurt him, lie to him, walk away from him, ignore him, let him pine after you like a puppy."

Kate flushes, looks down at her plate. "I know. I know that you've only seen the bad side. But I promise you, that's done. Your father is-" she sucks in a deep breath and meets Alexis' eyes. "Your father is everything to me. I don't have a job anymore; I've let my mother's case go. I chose him over all that. I will always choose him over everything else."

Alexis picks at the ends of her hair, a nervous habit she's fully aware of and fully unable to stop. "I know you think that now. But what about when he starts leaving his socks everywhere? When he locks himself in his office for days because he's got writer's block? When he tries to pawn you off with his disgusting culinary creations? What are you going to do when you get to know the real him?"

Kate just sits staring at Alexis, her mouth hanging slightly open and her eyes wide. It really, seriously pisses Alexis off how the woman can look so beautiful even when her face is slack with shock. She coughs, screws her eyes closed for a second.

"Alexis, I do know your father. I've spent almost every day with him for four years. I- God, I know him, and he knows me. Better than anyone."

Alexis does trust that Kate means it, at least she does right now. She can see the indignant fire burning behind the woman's eyes. She just wants to test her. "What would you do if I said I didn't want you to be together?"

Kate's answer is immediate. "I would tell you that it's not your choice. I gave up everything to be with your father and I'm not going to just let him go because you don't believe in me."

Alexis leans back in the booth, smiles. "That's what I needed to hear. The fight."

Kate nods in earnest. "I'll fight for him. I promise you that."

Alexis meets Kate's eyes, sees the fire there, and she believes her.


	17. Chapter 17

"Hey," he glances up from his laptop screen, grins at her where she stands in the doorway. "Good breakfast?"

She just stares at him, her face carefully blank. It makes his muscles clench of their own accord. He feels like he's done something to upset her and he's preparing to fight. Whatever he did, whatever it is, he'll apologise. He'll grovel and he'll beg for her forgiveness because there is no other option, only her.

"Kate? Babe, come here." She moves over to the bed slowly, sinks down next to his feet with her own still touching the floor.

She stares at the ground, refuses to look at him even as he presses his toes against her thigh. "Don't think that's going to become a thing, _babe_."

He puts his laptop on the nightstand, sits cross-legged and reaches out, two fingers at her jaw to turn her face towards him. "What? I've only called you that once."

She shakes her head, presses her lips together until they turn white. "Nope. You called me that this morning when I told you I was going out with Alexis."

Ah, yeah. He does have a faint recollection of being woken by her, of the rush of elation when she said she was taking his kid out, bonding with her. "Oh. Sorry. Is that why you're-"

He trails off, doesn't want to accuse her of being angry with him because if she isn't, that allegation will make her furious.

She shakes her head. "I said I was going out with your daughter and you said 'Alexis?' so I made a joke, told you 'no, your other daughter'. You said-" she swallows, hard, and his stomach twists painfully. What the hell did he say that is making her unravel, come apart at the edges, let him see the places where she hurts? "You said 'oh, Johanna'."

Just like that, her eyes brim with tears. She looks at him and he sees himself reflected in the glassy pool, distorted and warped. He lunges forward, lifts her into his lap and cradles her. It's too easy to do, far too easy to carry her. He remembers from carrying her out of the hangar, from numerous times lifting her against him and pressing her against a door or a wall or the tile of the shower. It does worry him, it does.

The stress of the past couple of months, years, really, has taken its toll on her and she's wasting away and it terrifies him.

He kisses her temple and she fists her hand in his shirt, clinging to him. "I'm sorry love. I was dreaming, after our conversation, and I guess it just spilled out. I'm sorry I hurt you."

She moans quietly, not the kind of moan he delights in drawing past her lips, but the kind he longs to bear the brunt of instead of her. "It's not the daughter thing. I expected as much from you. It's the name. I can't-"

She presses her lips together again and he runs his thumb along the seam of them, silently begging her to open up to him. She parts her lips, takes his thumb inside and laves at it with her tongue like it's an automatic response, her eyes vacant even as she works at him.

He pulls his thumb away, tilts her face towards him with a palm at her cheek. "The name?"

She buries her face against his shoulder, takes deep breaths that wrack her whole frame, each one a battle. She gets a hold of herself, her breathing evening out. "Yeah. I couldn't do that. Every day, having to call her that name. It'd just be a constant reminder that she's not here to see her granddaughter."

He feathers his lips from her forehead to her temple, traverses the slope of her cheek and the sharp line of her jaw, tours the places he loves her. "Okay. Honestly, I couldn't care less about the name. _Our daughter_, Kate." Her name falls from his lips, benediction and supplication both.

She slips two fingers through the front of his shirt, curls them against his sternum, her nails scratching at him. "It just caught me off guard, that's all. The thought that she won't be here. I don't know if I can do it."

He doesn't know that she can either. He can't imagine what it's going to be like for her, needing her mother so desperately, missing her so much. "It'll be hard. But it'll be worth it."

She flicks his button open with her thumb, creates enough room to slip her whole hand into his shirt and slide her fingers down his ribcage. It still makes him shudder even now, even after almost two months. "I know." she breathes against him, slides her hand out to work at the rest of his buttons.

* * *

She's falling in love with the curve of his knee as he sleeps.

She loves the bow of his patella, the long stretch of sinew to his calf, the ridge of bone and the fine dusting of hair. She presses her open mouth to the soft skin at the back of it, skates her lips up his thigh until she meets the sheets.

She hadn't ever seen his knee before this, before them.

He grunts something, straightens his leg and reaches down blindly. His hand catches in her hair and he tugs her gently up to meet him. She settles behind him, curls herself around his body, presses her nose to his shoulder blade.

He takes her hand, threads his fingers through hers and pulls until her palm is flat against his stomach. She hums softly, still surprised at herself.

She'd been so afraid that she'd be bad at this. Being with him, letting him love her. Only, she's not. She's really not, and it fills her up, paints lines at the corners of her eyes, turns the corners of her mouth up. "Hey. I was thinking, we haven't seen the boys in a while. You wanna get dinner with them?"

He squeezes her fingers, rolls over. She's so close to his back that he ends up half on top of her; the wide set of his shoulders a delicious weight on her bare chest. "Sure. Yeah. Let's have them over here."

She arches her neck to kiss him, lips landing at his chin. She rakes her teeth over his stubble, grins as he shudders. "Are you sure? Shouldn't we have neutral territory?"

He laughs, shifts his weight off of her so he can meet her eyes, his nose brushing hers. "They're not going to attack us, babe."

She shakes her head, suddenly serious. It does worry her, how things with be with Kevin and Javi now. "Don't do that. Don't turn it into us and them. We're a team."

He nods, wraps an arm around her waist and tugs her against him. "We're a family. Mom and Dad, right." She laughs at that, can't help it. "I'd just like to have them here. Feels less formal, and we could hang out, play poker or whatever."

"Okay. Yeah. I'll call them." She goes to move out of his embrace, hesitating as he tightens his arms around her. It's not that she couldn't break free of his grasp. She just doesn't want to hurt him, so she stays.

"Oh no you don't. I am so not done with you yet."


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: I'm changing my author name. It's a sort of weird and complicated story that I'll gladly share with you via private message if you really want to know but I won't bore everyone with the details. It'll be what it is now for the next week or so and then I'll be seilleanmor (seillean mòr is Scottish Gaelic for bumblebee if you're interested). **

* * *

Rueben is just so completely what she needs this morning. It's not that she woke up feeling like she hadn't slept at all. It's not that she had a text from Esposito letting her know that his administrative leave was up and he was going back to work. It's not that she didn't have time to get coffee and she feels the yearning for it at the back of her eyeballs. It's not that Castle was so absorbed in writing he didn't notice her leave.

It's the goddamn rain.

She actually likes the rain. She likes watching it, curled up on the couch with coffee and a book. She likes going for walks in the rain in the woods near her father's cabin and coming back absolutely soaked to the skin but feeling fresh and clean and whole. She liked the catharsis of it when she resigned and she liked the way it necessitated that Castle warm her up.

She doesn't like it now. She doesn't like the cold and the wet and the gray and she doesn't like that it makes her feel a sense of foreboding, like she needs to talk to Rick. She knows she does, she knows they need to talk about her resignation and about his desperation to keep her.

She is aware that he's avoiding confrontation in case it scares her away. She is, and she knows it's ugly and malignant inside him and she has to talk to him. She's just not good at words and she's so scared of losing him and every time she opens her mouth to start the conversation they so desperately need to have a wave of nausea assaults her and she can't get the words past her stupid, heavy tongue.

It weighs on her mind all through the subway ride and the walk to the center but when she gets there Rue runs up to her and wraps his arms around her knees and she just-

Yeah. She melts.

She crouches down to his level and he throws his arms around her neck and squeezes. "Hi Kate," his little voice finds her through the riotous shrieks of the other children and she beams, can't help it.

She hugs him back, runs her hands up and down his back. "Hi buddy." She pulls back to look at him, grins. "Know what you want to do today?"

He nods, as animated as she's ever seen him, and then he's taking her hand and trying to pull her where he wants her. She almost falls over onto her face, manages to get to her feet and follows him.

"Miss Iris got us things to play dress up. She says it's good for our 'magination." He tugs the lid off of the box and hesitates for a moment, obviously in awe of the vast array of costumes in front of him.

Iris comes up behind Rue, smiles at Kate. She stares open mouthed, her gaze flicking from Iris to the box and back again. "How did you afford this?"

Iris laughs, a sound so rich and warm that the last of the tension drains from Kate's shoulders. "Anonymous donation."

Kate has to fight not to roll her eyes. Anonymous. Sure. Before she can think of something to say that doesn't give away exactly _who_ made the donation, Rueben tugs on her shirt sleeve.

She looks at him, watches as he rummages around in the box and then sits back on his heels, triumph spreading across his face.

He hands her a badge.

She goes cold all over, stares at the lump of plastic in her hand. "I'm gonna be a robber and you have to 'rest me." He grabs a sack from the box, tosses it over his shoulder and shoots her a wicked grin. Then he's off.

She can't follow, can't chase him, can't do anything except sit and stare at the badge in her hand.

Suddenly, she can't breathe. Her chest constricts, her ribcage rushing in to squeeze her heart too hard. Black rushes in at the edge of her vision and she sucks in air desperately through her teeth, none of it making it past her throat.

She's shaking so hard that she drops the badge and doesn't even hear as it clatters to the floor. She draws her knees up to her chest and rests her forehead on them, screws her eyes shut and tries to just suck in oxygen.

She's drowning she's drowning she can't breathe.

* * *

Of course she wrote him down as her emergency contact so after Iris has taken her into the staff area and settled her onto the couch it's him that she calls.

When he shows up he's paler than she's ever seen him. She can see the nervous energy flooding his muscles, watches his quiet conversation with Iris and doesn't hear any of it. She isn't getting enough oxygen to make her ears work.

He nods at Iris and Kate watches with a cold detachment as he takes the woman's hand in his, squeezes it and shoots her his best charm-laced grin.

He doesn't take her straight home. He leads her outside and pushes her up against the wall, his arms at her back so the damp of the brick doesn't touch her. He pushes his body against hers, just the right amount of pressure that she feels safe, feels protected. She bows her head and takes great heaving breaths in, mouth open and gasping.

She can't hear him but she knows he's speaking, knows he's telling her that she's safe, that it's okay. He cups the back of her head with one hand, presses his lips to her temple. "Shh. It's okay. You're safe. I'm here. Shh."

She rests her head back against the wall and lets the rain land on her face. She shuts her eyes, concentrates on the feeling of each individual drop of water as it lands on her. When she can open them again he's watching her, the storm echoed in his eyes. Beads of water drip from his hair, slide down his nose and fall from the end of it.

He wipes his hand under her eyes, cups her neck for a moment and then takes her hand, leads her down the street to a café she had no idea existed.

He finds them a couch tucked away in the corner and watches silently as her knees give and she curls into the corner of it. She blinks, and he's sinking down next to her with two green teas.

"You had a panic attack." It's not a question.

"You've had them before." She doesn't attempt to answer, can't understand why he sounds so angry with her. "You're going to calm down and drink your tea and then we're not leaving here until you talk to me about what's going on. This relationship is not going to work unless we're honest with each other."

She gapes at him. He hasn't been this mad at her since their fight in her apartment, since she ignored his pleas to drop the case. Since she threw her life away and forced him to watch. "Castle-"

She cuts herself off, can't free the words where they're stuck in her still trembling veins. He takes over for her the way he always has done. "I love you, and I'm not letting either of us screw this up. Now drink your tea."


	19. Chapter 19

In hindsight, he's not so sure that taking her to a public place to have this out is a good idea.

He'd reacted without thinking, allowed the anger flooding his veins to dictate his actions. Even now, some part of him thinks this is best. Here, she can't yell at him. She can't scream and cry and run out. She has no choice but to be rational.

That's all he wants. A rational conversation with her about where each of them stands both separately and in relation to one another.

The guilt weighs heavy on him, makes his bones jar against each other. He feels the catch of his knees as he moves to sink back into the couch, his thigh aligning with hers. He takes her hand between both of his and tries not to weep at the frozen lines of her delicate fingers.

She won't look at him, hasn't moved to take a sip of her drink. She's barely even blinking. "Hey. Kate, love. Look at me." She doesn't, and he has no choice but to plough on regardless. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. I'm just- you're terrifying me. I hate seeing you like this."

She still doesn't look at him, she still doesn't speak. But she reaches out and wraps both hands around the mug of tea he brought for her and he makes that enough.

She takes a sip with her eyes closed and he echoes her, always drawn to reflect her movements as if it will bring them closer, help him to understand her better. He watches her drink the whole mug down in slow sips, watches the wet slide of her lips against the rim.

He does know he should so not be turned on by this but he can't help it. Everything she does is just so _hot_.

She settles the mug back on the table in front of them, turns to face him. Her eyes are rimmed with red but not wet anymore, her carefully measured control spreading slowly across her face. A muscle in her jaw twitches and he watches her grit her teeth, denying it permission to betray her emotions.

He moves across the couch, presses the length of his thigh against hers and takes her hand in his. "Please talk to me."

She curls, cants her body into him, her knee coming up to press against his thigh. Her forehead meets his neck and he twists to press his lips to the top of her head, hopes she can feel the weight of his apology. She fists her hands in his shirt and uses the leverage to pull back and look at him.

He smiles, can't help it. He never expected her to meet his eyes for this conversation. "It doesn't feel permanent."

"Your resignation?"

She shakes her head, bites at her bottom lip to stop it trembling. "No."

He's really not sure how he's going to make it through this when every time she moves, looks at him, says anything, he just wants to wrap his arms around her and hold her for the foreseeable future. He doesn't. "You want to go back?"

She lets go of his shirt, smoothes the wrinkles in it with her palm and then draws her hand away, picks at the cuff of her sweater. "I love it. I love the rush of crime-solving. I love bringing justice to people. I'm a damn good cop, Castle."

He comes so close to laughing that the guilt settles over him even as he forces the muscles of his face to cooperate. "I know. You don't have to prove that to anyone. You're an amazing cop."

She nods, chews on her lip. She's still picking at her cuff, her gaze darts down to her hands and stays there. She can't meet his eyes anymore and he knows the next part will be about him. "But if I go back where does that leave us? I quit for you."

He uses two fingers at her chin to tilt her head, make her meet his eyes. He's not sure why but it's suddenly imperative that she look at him. "Look at me. I would never ask you to give up your job for me. Your mother's case, yes, but not all the others."

She slides a hand under his thigh, palm up, curls her fingers against him. "Really. You wouldn't mind?"

He grins at her. "Getting to introduce you to everyone as 'my girlfriend, the NYPD's finest'? No, I think I'd be okay with that." She laughs quietly, hums at him. He's not done yet, though. It's important that she know. "You know I'm so proud to be yours."

She stares at him for a second and in the interim between breaths his whole body floods with panic. He's said too much and now she'll run. He almost doesn't feel her hand at his jaw, doesn't realise what she's doing until her lips meet his.

He closes his eyes and sighs against her, his hand coming around to settle between her shoulder blades. She pulls back to speak, lets her lips ghost against his. "You don't need to look so scared. You don't have to hide anymore. I want you to share how you feel, even if you think it's going to make me mad."

He rests his forehead against hers, nudges at her nose. He thinks he should pull away maybe; they're in public and he doesn't know that he can stop himself. He just can't. He'd been denied the feeling of how it can be to love her for four years and he's going to take every opportunity to make up for lost time. "I don't want to lose you."

She screws her eyes shut, sighs. When she opens them again they're sharper, full of life. He can tell, knows exactly what her eyes look like as the life drains out of them.

Sometimes, he still feels the weight of her head cradled in his palm. Sometimes he still feels the hot press of her broken body against him, the panic hot and fast as it laces his bloodstream.

She kisses him again and again, punctuates her words with the press of her mouth to his. "You won't lose me." Kiss. "I need you to share so we can be stronger." Kiss. "I will love you through anything." Kiss.

He brings both hands up to cup her face. "I want you to go back to work. I want you to tell me when you're hurting or scared or panicking. I want you to be okay with making plans for the future. I want you to accept a future with me."

He stops talking, kisses the end of her nose and stays there. Her lips brush at his chin, a hot press of her tongue. "I just want you."

He laughs, pulls back and then has to lunge forward to press his mouth to the lines at the corners of her eyes, take them into himself so he can always remember how her happiness tastes. "A joke. Good. I love your smile." Her hand immediately reaches up to cover it and he wraps his fingers around her wrist to stay her. "Don't cover it. Jeez, woman."

She rolls her eyes at him and his chest breaks apart, oxygen and light flooding his lungs with ease. "Really though, Rick. I want you. I want your future. I want you talking about our daughter while you're half asleep."

He grins sheepishly at her. "Good. So what do you think you'll do?"

She shrugs. "Take the rest of the summer. See the city with you; maybe get out of it too?" She looks at him as if that plan needs confirmation and he beams at her. "Yeah. Uh, catch up on some reading and some sleep. Settle in to a life with you. And then in the fall we go back. And if my mother's case crops up, you get the authority to tell me to back off and I'll listen. I promise you. I know what I'm risking now. I know it's not worth it."

He tugs her against him, buries his nose in her hair and breathes deeply. "Kate, love?" She hums against his chest and his heart responds wildly to the vibration, starts clattering and thudding against his ribcage. "Let's go home."


	20. Chapter 20

When Kate opens the door to both Ryan and Esposito, she reaches blindly for Castle's hand and squeezes it, hard. Tries to express the tidal wave of relief that threatens to drown her in the simple touch. Both the boys glance pointedly at the grip of their hands but don't deign to comment.

She can't even speak to greet them, an overwhelming surge of emotion swelling her throat and leaving her breathless. Crap. She's going to have to get a hold of herself before she goes back. She's just-

Yeah. She's missed her team.

She ushers them in, wraps her arms around Ryan. She's never even gotten a chance to thank him for saving her life and so she tries to say it all in the press of her palms between his shoulder blades.

When she lets him go Esposito's scowling at her, the mirth shining in his eyes belying his mock annoyance. "Jeez, Beckett, Writer Boy's made you soft."

She smacks him on the arm, turns around to look at Rick and smacks him as well. It does nothing to wipe the grin from his mouth. She does know a way to stop his smile, but she's entirely sure that the boys wouldn't appreciate it.

Castle ushers Ryan and Esposito over to the dining table. They look from the table to Kate and back again in perfect time and she bites the inside of her lip to control her treacherous muscles, stop the grin from spreading across her face. "You cook this for us, Beckett?"

She shrugs. "Castle helped."

Ryan raises an eyebrow at her. "How very domestic."

"Shut up." She scowls at both of them and they sit down, laughing.

It's pathetic, but she doesn't even mind their teasing. Not when it's the tag team she'd been so afraid had been destroyed. Things are still a little stilted, Ryan just a little too supplicating, but she knows without a doubt now that they'll be fine.

She sits at the table next to Ryan and Rick sits opposite her. He nudges Esposito and gestures at the food. "We made chicken wings just for you."

The detective rubs his hands together in delight and starts filling his plate, Ryan quickly following his lead. "You know Castle, I'm offended. Ryan and I not good enough for you to shadow?"

Her eyes dart to Rick's, find them darker than she likes. "Sorry boys, the precinct just doesn't hold quite the same appeal without her in it." Kate smiles softly at him and he reaches out across the table to take her hand and squeeze it.

Esposito groans and pretends to gag. "Oh, gross. I'm glad Mom and Dad are okay but seriously. Get a room."

Castle lets go of her hand and shifts in his seat to look at Javi. "I have a room. You're in it."

The detective grins and carries on eating. Ryan swallows a mouthful of fries and smiles. "Seriously though. I'm glad you two are okay."

Esposito snorts. "I second that. About damn time."

There's an awkward pause where everyone focuses on their food. They don't do this. They don't socialise outside of cases. Sure, they go to the Old Haunt but it's always after a case, always to celebrate.

Without work to fall back on, no one knows what to say to each other. Kate swallows hard and takes the plunge. "So, any interesting cases?"

The boys look at each other and then at Castle, and it really pisses her off. Just because she's in love with him does not mean he has to be consulted about her emotional capacity to deal with talking about work. "Hey. Guys. I'm right here. You don't have to check with Rick, I'm the one that asked the question."

They both look sheepish and she softens, spoons more chicken onto her plate. "I'm coming back in the fall. If Gates will let me. I want to know."

Ryan pauses a moment, scans her face for any sign that she's lying. He seems satisfied, nods. "Well, I helped out Karpowski's team until Esposito came back. Since then we've had two cases and they've both been open and shut."

"Yeah. Nothing Beckett flavored." It feels so good to see Esposito backing his partner up. The guilt still weighs heavy on her for breaking up their partnership but with each friendly word between them she can breathe a little easier.

After that, the conversation flows a little more easily. The hesitation to talk about cases dispelled, the boys are more than willing to divulge the details of their latest solves.

Rick helps Kate clear the table and load the dishwasher. She can tell just from his face that he's preparing to change the tone of the evening. He looks heavy. She longs to press her body to his, align their mouths and appease him the best way she knows how. She can't, of course. Not with the boys here.

Castle sends her to go and get the poker chips from his office and set up the table. She's hesitant, but she goes, careful to stay in earshot.

"I want to thank you both. Javi, thank you for having her back no matter what. And Kevin, thank you for making the right decision and saving her. I can't express how grateful I am."

She has to sink into his desk chair, bury her face in her hands. It still cripples her, how close she came to breaking all three of them along with herself. She sucks in a breath through her teeth, forces her legs to cooperate with her.

She finds the cards and chips for poker, goes to set up the table. Her boys are murmuring to each other and she lets them. She lets them bond again; regain the trust she took from them.

Once she's set up she calls the three of them over. Rick immediately throws her a pointed glance and reshuffles the cards, obviously not trusting her not to cheat. Truthfully, she couldn't care less about the game itself, too busy rejoicing in the four of them playing together.

The four of them sit down at the poker table and Castle deals the cards.

* * *

He keeps glancing at Kate throughout the game, knows his emotions are naked on his face but can't do anything to stop it.

He wants to know what she's thinking, how she's feeling. Whether the relief is as strong in her veins as it is in his. Whether she feels as good as he does to see the boys happy and whole.

After the poker game (Esposito wins – Castle and Kate both far too distracted to even try) Rick offers the boys a drink.

"Sorry bro, we gotta work tomorrow." Esposito looks as close to regretful as Castle's ever seen him.

He nods. "Right, of course. Okay, well, see you soon then?" Kate comes around to his side and his arm falls across her shoulders before he can stop himself. She shrugs him off, squeezes his fingers in apology. He knows she wants to look strong in front of the boys, doesn't want to admit that she's been leaning on him.

At the door, Esposito tugs her to the side. He finds Ryan's coat on the hook, all the while listening to the whispered conversation next to him.

"You tell me if he doesn't treat you right, got it?"

He's affronted, almost defends himself, but Kate answers before he can get his mouth to open.

"No, Javi. He's been- he's great. We're really… great."

The detective nods briskly, takes his coat from Rick's outstretched hand and follows his partner from the loft. Rick shuts the door behind them, leans back against it. He reaches out for Kate and she comes into his embrace, nestles against his chest.

"You okay?" He almost whispers into her hair.

She hums against him, the vibration rippling in his sternum. "Yeah. Was good to see them."

He kisses her temple, skirts her jaw on his way to her mouth. He tastes her again and again, her strength and her grace filling him. He wants to have her never leave his arms again. "Yeah. They seem on good terms. You still feeling good about going back?"

The corners of her mouth turn up and she rocks forwards onto her tiptoes to press the softness of her smile to him. "Yeah. I miss us. Fantastic Four."

He laughs at her cheek. "Oh really? Which one am I then?"

She shrugs. "Wanna go peruse your collection and decide?"

His brain is so busy stuttering over how utterly sexy she is that he actually has to jog to catch up to her on her way to the study.


	21. Chapter 21

He wakes in the night to check his phone. Just like he did the night she was shot and every night after that until she came back to him.

He stopped, once he had the tangibility of her presence to ground him, give him strength. He no longer woke to the darkness of two in the morning, pressed his finger to the screen of his phone to make sure.

To be sure there was no call telling him she'd gotten worse, she was dying again, he'd lost her.

He'd stopped, but tonight he wakes. Only this time, he is not cloaked in solitude. He does not reach out and feel the loneliness of his fragile heart ripple around him in waves. This time he has the achingly soft expanse of her skin pressed against his for company.

He's not sure why tonight. Maybe seeing the boys again has knocked his system all out of balance, left him reeling. He doesn't know. When he presses his fingers to the screen of his phone, on autopilot, the date blares back at him and he swallows hard. He closes his eyes and nestles his face into her hair, goes back to sleep.

* * *

She wakes up slowly, feels like she's being dragged out of sleep against her will. She blinks open bleary eyes and tries to stretch. His arm tightens around her waist and he huffs against her neck. She hums and turns in the circle of his arms, brings her knees up between them and rests her head against his clavicle.

She lets him have a moment to breathe her in, her palm ghosting up and down his ribcage. He sighs and it makes her hair flutter and fall over her face. She pushes it back and her fingers land at his chin, press into it. She slides her index finger up to his lips and he kisses the tip of it, grins at her, his eyes still closed.

She adores these early morning moments between them, before she has to face the rest of the world. She takes fortification from his reverent touches, his worship of her.

Her hand snakes its way downwards and she curls her fingers in the waistband of his pajama pants, rakes her fingernails over the soft flesh of his hips. "Morning."

He smiles down at her, two fingers at her chin to tip her face up and then he meets her mouth with his, chaste presses of their lips. "Morning, gorgeous."

She laughs softly, rolls her eyes at him. Only, the way he's looking at her, she can't help but feel that it's true, or at least it is for him. "I'm gonna make coffee and come back to bed. Want some?"

He grunts and tightens his grip on her waist, his palms like heat pads at her spine. "No. Not letting you out of bed today."

Her knee slides between his even as she's sighing at him. "Really, not even for coffee?"

He shakes his head fervently. "No."

She sighs again, pushes her hair back from her face. She really needs coffee, and a shower. Damn it, Castle. "Why the hell not?"

He's suddenly sheepish, won't meet her eyes. "It's Friday the 13th."

"Oh jeez Castle, seriously?"

He shrugs. "You know I believe in this stuff."

She can't help but smile at that. He's ridiculous and infuriating, but yeah. She kinda loves him. "I know you do. I love that about you. But why do I have to stay too?"

He beams at her, nuzzles his nose against hers. "Because I don't want anything to happen to you."

She can't really argue with that. She chews on her bottom lip while she tries to think of a rational argument as to why she_ can't_ just stay in bed with him all day. "What about food?"

He makes his eyebrows dance at her. "We order in and have Alexis bring it to us here."

She raises an eyebrow at him, makes him wait and has to fight to stifle her laughter as he makes a show of swallowing hard. "You would seriously make your daughter wait on us? You'd make her have to look at us like this?"

She's wearing underwear and a white tank and he's only wearing pajama pants. Alexis has seemed more accepting of her relationship with Rick since their talk, but Kate doesn't think the teenager is quite ready for this yet.

"Uh, I guess not. Well, okay, apart from to answer the door, no getting out of bed." He presses his open mouth to the curve of her shoulder and sucks hard. She whimpers, closes her eyes as he slides his knee between her legs and then she rocks into him.

He laughs at her. It still makes her cheeks heat how he is the one with all the self control. She tells herself that it's because she denied herself him for so long and she's reached her limit now, is powerless to fight her body's carnal need. He knows it, the bastard, laughs at her again. "Am I doing a good job of persuading you?"

She groans into his jaw, catches his skin between her teeth and laves at it with her tongue. "Yes. Oh God, Rick. Yes. Fine. We can stay in bed."

He chuckles darkly even as he's tugging her tank top up and over her head. "I knew I'd persuade you."

* * *

He decides mid-afternoon that he just won't let her out of the loft, rather than the bed. She's been asking him every five minutes for the past two hours to let her have a shower and even Castle can't stave off the irritation indefinitely.

And yeah, he does feel bad about holding her hostage. She's independent and fierce and he adores that about her, even if he abhors it too.

He forces himself not to hover while she's in the bathroom, goes through to the living area instead and finds his daughter curled on the couch with a book. "Hey pumpkin."

She looks up, her braid falling over her shoulder. "Hey Dad. Kate convince you that fortifying yourself in bed for the entirety of Friday 13th is ridiculous?"

He scowls at her, knows his eyes are shining with mirth. "No, actually, I came to that conclusion all by myself. I refuse to do anything that could be dangerous. We're gonna order pizza and watch a movie when Kate's done showering, you wanna join us?"

His daughter regards him carefully and he goes over to her, sinks into the couch by her side. "You know, you look different when you talk about her. Your whole face lights up."

He grins, shrugs sheepishly. "She says the same about you."

Alexis smiles at that, something in the set of her shoulders gives way and she's loose and fluid again, the tension draining out of her. "Yeah, pizza and a movie sounds good."

Kate appears from his office, her hair damp and curling over her shoulders. "Hey, Alexis. You gonna join us for dinner?"

She addressed his daughter first and it makes his heart soar. She's better at this than she thinks she is. He'd had to appease her doubts in the middle of the night when he woke up to find her staring out of the window, streetlights casting orange light over her.

He fishes his phone from his pocket and calls for pizza as Kate comes around to sit on his other side. She passes the remote to his daughter and urges her to choose something from Netflix, saying something about it being Alexis' turn.

He's bracketed by the two most important people in his life. His arm wraps around Kate's shoulders, his other hand falling to his daughter's knee and squeezing. He's awash with love for them both and he tries to say it in his touch, doesn't want to make their casual family dinner needlessly emotional.

He knows Kate can tell, she can always sense the way his heart swells in his chest and longs to spill out. She butts her head against his shoulder and smiles softly at him, dissolves the knot of emotion in his chest with that one look.

He kisses her softly, turns his head and presses his lips to his daughter's temple as she starts the movie. She chose _Singin' in the Rain_ and he can't help but grin because Kate loves this movie. Kate utters every line of dialogue very quietly along with the actors every time they watch it. Kate _sings along_ to this movie.

(He tips the delivery boy extra for venturing out into the dangerous world of Friday 13th.)


	22. Chapter 22

It doesn't even surprise her anymore. When she wakes up in the night, unable to remember the details of her dreams but frozen in a paralytic state of fear, the nausea rolling in the pit of her stomach. She's no longer laced with shock, just the terror that only her mother's case can bring.

Her eyes fly open, scanning her bedroom for anything out of the ordinary, anything that could be a threat. She manages to regain enough control of her trembling muscles that she can press a palm over her heart, try to soothe the staccato frenzy of its beating. She closes her eyes again, tries to focus on drawing air into her lungs.

She misses her mom. It twists in her guts, this raw, ugly thing. She doesn't like exposing it, tries her best to keep it suppressed, locked away in the pit of her stomach. But sometimes she can't help it; sometimes it shows itself without warning.

Even as her hand reaches out for her phone she doesn't want to call him. She doesn't want to need him; refuses to admit that she won't get back to sleep now without his voice to lull her, soothe her.

He answers on the second ring, the edges of sleep clinging to his voice. The gravelly rasp of it sends heat flaring through her veins, reminds her of that first night when he'd sounded like this after she'd woken him up to-

Yeah, uh. She likes his sleep voice. "Hey. Sorry I woke you."

He sighs at her, the way he does every time she apologizes for something he's adamant she doesn't need to. He's told her every time they've spent the night apart to call if she needs him, if she wants him, no matter the time. She just doesn't usually take him up on it.

And yeah, she knows how ridiculous it is. That it doesn't even cross her mind when she wakes him at 3am for a body, but when it's because she needs him she can't push back the guilt.

"Don't be ridiculous. What's wrong?" He's so gentle with her in the middle of the night, so soft and pliant. Desperate to bend himself into whatever shape will fix her.

She sucks in a breath through her teeth. Her hand snakes out of its own accord and grabs his pillow, draws it in. She wraps both arms around it and holds it to her chest, the weight of it coupled with his voice helping to disperse the last of her fear. "I was dreaming."

"About your mom?" It doesn't even surprise her anymore, that he knows. Of course he does. That's his job, isn't it?

She rolls onto her other side, trying to get comfortable. She's finding it difficult to orient herself in the bed without the mountain range of his body to guide her. "Yeah. I can't even remember what happened, I just woke up and I was-" she hates that she hesitates, but she still finds it so very hard to admit. "I was so scared."

He lets out a low noise of comfort and she wants his arms around her so badly, wants to bury her face against his neck and forgot that there's a world outside of him. there's a noise on his end of the line and tension ripples through her. "Castle? What was that?"

"Uh, nothing." It takes her a second to work out why he sounds guilty, and then it hits her.

"Are you getting out of bed?"

She can almost hear his shrug. "I really need to see you right now."

"No, Rick. Go back to bed. I need to prove to myself that I'm fine, that it's safe. Okay?" She's awash with love and gratitude for him, for how he's willing to go out in the middle of the night just to make sure she's okay.

She has to prove she can still be her own person, can still hold herself up, but that doesn't mean she can't give him something. "Will you stay on the line?"

He lets his breath go in a rush, relief heavy in everything he's not saying. "Yes, yeah. Of course."

* * *

He just really wants to hold her. He _knows_ that she's strong. He _knows_ she can hold herself up. She doesn't have to prove it, not to him. He could show up at her apartment anyway, use his key. Only, he can't help but think that would send the wrong message, make her think that he sees her as weak, sees her as needing him. Which of course he doesn't. Her strength and her independence are two of the things he loves most about her.

He can hear her breathing on the other end of the line and if he closes his eyes he can pretend she's right here. "Hey Castle?"

He hums a response, the tendrils of sleep suddenly curling like fog in his brain. "Where's your mom?"

He can't help but smile at that. His mother's been gone since Alexis' graduation, and Kate's just now noticing her absence? "She's still in the Hamptons. She usually spends all summer out there. She called me when she'd been out a couple of days, to see how I was holding up." He doesn't mention that his mother's concern was warranted, how she'd had to watch his heart break.

From the way Kate's breath catches in her throat, he doesn't need to. "I told her I was fine, that I was happy, and that she should stay in the Hamptons as long as she wanted."

His girlfriend laughs softly. Wait, no, not his girlfriend. That's so… juvenile. His-

Kate. His Kate, then. Except no, she's not his. She'll never be owned, not by him, not by anyone. Partner is just going to have to do until he can replace it with something better.

"Have you kept in contact with her though?"

He smiles, knows she'll hear it in his voice. "Sporadically, yeah. My mother isn't one to call every day."

There's a brittle edge to Kate's voice. "Don't you miss her? You should appreciate the time you have with her, Castle."

Shit. Yeah, he should have realised where her sudden interest in his mother came from. "Of course I miss her. Hey, how about we get out there for a weekend? Take a break from the city and check up on her, make sure there's still some alcohol left in the house."

"Yeah, that'd be great." He must have eased some niggling worry in her because he loses her to sleep soon after that. He wants to stay up all night listening to her breathe on the other end of the phone. Instead, he hangs up; burrows back under the covers and closes his eyes.

It takes him almost an hour to calm his muscles, fight off the desperation to run to her and get to sleep.


	23. Chapter 23

When he'd suggested a weekend getaway, he hadn't exactly meant _this_ weekend. But Kate had appeared at the loft that morning with her duffle bag by her feet. She'd smiled at him and he'd tugged her inside with an arm at her waist, kissed her softly.

He still gets a wash of _I've wanted to do that forever_ every time he gets to kiss her good morning. It doesn't feel like it's ever going to go away and he's quite content with that.

He'd packed his own bag, Kate sitting cross-legged on the bed watching, and then he'd loaded the two bags into the trunk of his Ferrari and offered to toss a coin to decide who got to drive. She'd rolled her eyes at him and climbed into the passenger seat, left him gaping.

He turns to her now, the breeze whipping her hair up around her head like a halo, sunglasses obscuring most of her face, and he can't remember her ever being more beautiful. "There's a hair tie in the glove compartment if you want it, Alexis keeps them there. She hates her hair blowing in her face on the drive."

She orients her face towards him, sends him a half smile. He gets the feeling she's not really paying attention to him right now, and he's quite content to let her revel in their surroundings. She does this sometimes, gets so caught up in what's going on around her that she stops noticing him.

He doesn't mind. He thinks it's sort of wonderful, actually. It gives him the opportunity to watch her as much as he likes.

He takes one hand off the wheel and opens the glove compartment himself, fishes out a hair tie and passes it to her. She makes this high pitched noise in the back of her throat like he's startled her and he chuckles quietly. "Kate, babe, tie your hair back. It'll be all knotted otherwise."

She secures her curls in a low pony tail at the nape of her neck. She's still looking at the ocean to their right; he can only see snatches of her jaw, the curve of her cheek. He's finding it difficult to keep his eyes on the road but he'll be damned if he crashes. This is only the third time he's ever been allowed to drive.

Twenty minutes pass in a silence that is so filled with Kate's reverence he can't imagine it ever growing awkward. His gate looms in front of him and he runs his hand up her thigh, squeezes it. She flexes her quad almost on autopilot, knows how hot it makes him to feel the play of muscle under his touch. "Kate. We're here."

He finds the key card in the center console, waves it in front of the gate. He could have just pressed the buzzer, had his mother let them in, but she might be on the beach or in the pool or somewhere else. The gates swing open and he eases the car forward. The drive curls around to the garage, a separate building on the left.

He doesn't put the car in the garage, just parks it by the front door. He gets out, Kate still frozen in awe. He's glad, it means he can open her door for her, play the gentleman.

He offers his arm and she takes it, slides her hand down his forearm as she gets out of the car. She laces their fingers together, palms kissing, and he squeezes. He ducks his head to press a gentle kiss to her temple, pulls back to smile at her. "You okay?"

She shakes her head softly, her mouth falling open. "Castle, this is- wow. Incredible."

He beams at her. "Yeah. It's pretty huge, kinda ridiculous actually for a four person family. I think I'm gonna get keys for the boys and Lanie, maybe your dad too if he wants. Let them know they're welcome any time."

She's staring at him, her jaw slack. He eases her sunglasses off; her eyes are wide and shining underneath. "Hey, what's wrong?"

She closes her eyes, swallows hard. "Four person family, you said. You, your mom, Alexis-"

"And you." Did she really _doubt_? "Jeez, Kate, you. You're my family."

She nods at him, smiling even as a tear slides down her cheek. "Yeah, I know. It just caught me by surprise."

He presses his lips to hers in a chaste kiss, swipes his thumb under her eye. "You want a tour?"

She laughs, the wet, self-deprecating laughter that comes with tears. "Yeah, okay."

He ushers her up the steps ahead of him. He remembers when he'd bought this place the real estate agent had told him that when showing a house, you should always let the guest or the customer enter before you, to ensure your presence isn't marring their first impression.

He hands her the key, lets her open the door. They don't really use the front door when they're here but he wants her to get the full effect of the house's magnificence.

She steps into the foyer and all her breath rushes out of her. He crowds up behind her, brushes her hair over her shoulder to leave the skin of her neck bare and calling his lips in a delicious siren song.

He tastes her again and again, one hand coming up to wrap around her waist. She turns to face him, presses her lips to his once. "Let me have the tour, then this. Well, actually, we should say hi to your mom right?"

He groans, the mention of his mother entirely unwelcome. "Tour, then Mother, then this." He kisses her one last time and then puts a respectable distance of a few inches between them, his hand finding hers again.

* * *

She's kind of in awe of this house. She's known he has money, but this? It's stunning and gorgeous and so far beyond anything she imagined for his house in the Hamptons.

In front of her she can see across the living room and out the patio doors to the outdoor kitchen, the veranda and the pool and then the ocean beyond. The décor is very different to the loft, the floor is whitewashed wood and the walls are pale blue. The whole space is light and airy and calming.

She hasn't moved since she stepped into the foyer and she's already in love with this house.

He tugs on her hand, leads her off to the right, past a staircase that curls around into the living area and through an archway. "Kitchen, dining table, family room." He makes a sweeping gesture and her eyes trip over the kitchen units and the table, land on what he referred to as the family room.

"Looks like a library to me."

He shrugs. "Yeah. We tend to use it as a kind of reading nook and then the living room for family time in the evenings. But honestly, Kate? We don't really come out here to sit inside."

She laughs quietly, goes over to the window and looks out at the stretch of sand, sweeping down into the startling cobalt of the water. "Yeah, makes sense."

He kisses her pulse, just underneath her ear, and damn it, he knows how hot that makes her. He knows she can't focus when he does that. "Hey, remember the list."

He groans but steps back, takes her hand again and leads her through the door on the right. There's a small hallway with doors to the left, right, and straight in front of them.

He points to the door on the right first. "Utility." He turns her around to look at the door on the left, pushes it open. "We usually use this as the bathroom during the day when we're outside and then we wash off in the shower there so we don't get sand all through the house. That door leads right out onto the porch."

He pushes open the last door. "Supposed to be bedroom number two but I have it as my study. Most of _Naked Heat_ was written in there."

She rolls her eyes at the book title, still finds it ridiculous. "Bedroom two of how many?"

He closes the door as he answers. "Five, including the master suite. Oh, I meant to ask. You will share the suite with me, right? Or should I make up one of the bedrooms upstairs?"

Shit. She didn't mean to make him doubt like this. She's been spending nights at her apartment more frequently lately, trying to ease herself back into it, ready for the fall. She doesn't want there to be an abrupt change, doesn't want to go from spending every night with him to none just like that.

She turns into him, uses his shoulder for leverage as she goes up onto her toes. She meets his mouth with hers, runs her tongue along the seam of his lips. "Are you trying to kick me out of your bed?"

He grunts, kisses her back, his hands tangling in her hair. "Our bed."

Delicious trails of heat run down between her shoulder blades and coil in her stomach. "Okay, yeah. Our bed. Show me."

* * *

Yeah, so, the master suite is beautiful. An enormous bed, patio doors out onto the beach. A huge walk in closet that you actually walk _through_ to get to the bathroom. Which, by the way, has a Jacuzzi bath tub and an enormous shower.

She's a little breathless, in awe of it all. She's seen opulence before, she works in Manhattan after all, but this is ridiculous.

He backs her up against the wall in the master suite and kisses her and she gives it back, brackets his thigh with hers. Her head drops back to the wall, exposing her neck to the ministrations of his tongue.

Her hands fist in his shirt, her breath coming in these staccato pants she should be ashamed of considering they're both still fully clothed. "Shit, Castle."

He grins against her skin, nips at her very carefully. "You like that?"

Her response is cut off by a knock on the patio door of the bedroom. She startles, pushes Castle away from her and turns to face the sound.

His mother is standing outside on the porch, waving at them through the glass.

* * *

The first thought that crosses his mind, before the shame, even, is that he needs to have a serious talk with his mother about interrupting him and Kate. He can forgive her for the bank; she was handcuffed after all, but seriously?

But then Kate's burying her face against his neck in mortification. He presses her to him with a palm between her shoulder blades, breathes his nervous laughter out against her scalp.

"It's not funny. Of all the ways for her to find out."

He pushes her back so he can meet her eyes. "Hey, it's okay. She'll be happy for us."

Kate shakes her head, her cheeks still pink. "No, she must be so mad at me."

He snorts. "She's mad at both of us for taking so long. She's known I'm in love with you for longer than _I_ have."

He takes her hand, squeezes it. "I'm so happy, Kate. Thanks to you. It won't take her long to see that. Let's go get it over with."

She laughs along with him and allows him to lead her over to the patio door. He opens it and steps out, has to give her a gentle tug to get her to come out after him.

His mother envelops them both in a hug and when she pulls back she's beaming. "I see you two have finally realised that you're meant to be together. Some of us were going gray waiting you know."

His mother winks at Kate and he feels her relax next to him, the tension in her shoulders melting away. "Yeah, we're not wasting any more time." She says, and then she turns to face him, smiles softly.

Martha grins and ushers the two of them around the porch to the recliners. "I was just about to go in the pool, but now that you're here you simply must tell me all about when _this_ happened." She gestures to their linked hands.

He lets go, leans in to press a kiss to Kate's temple. She tilts her head up, meets his lips with her own softly. It only lasts a second, her attention still on Martha, and it means more to him than any of their other kisses.

It felt like habit. It's her habit to kiss him now. He swallows hard. "I'll go get the bags from the car and put them in the room. Mother, please do try not to terrify Kate into going back to the city immediately."

Both women roll their eyes at him and he can't help his laughter as he ducks back inside the house.


	24. Chapter 24

The breeze licks across her back and she shudders, her skin coming out in gooseflesh even as the heat permeates her skin. This is exactly what she needed. A chance to soak up the sun, without the weight of murder on her shoulders.

She rolls over, sits up and rests her weight on her elbows. Her stomach is coated in sand, it clings to her thighs and her shins as well. Martha lies on her stomach next to Kate, an iPod in and her sunglasses on. Kate's not even entirely sure that the older woman is still awake.

She scans the horizon for Castle, sees him running up the beach towards her. He'd tried to convince her to join him on his exploratory expedition, but she'd refused. She'd felt like she needed a chance to really relax, and also that some time apart would be good for them.

Rick reaches her, slowing to a walk as he does so as not to spray her with sand. It melts her, how considerate he is even when he's excited. And he's definitely excited, a beaming grin stretching across his face, his eyes creased at the corners. He falls to his knees next to her, panting.

"Kate," he breathes, and she can't help but grin.

"Yeah?" She reaches out to brush away some of the sand that clings to his temples, runs her fingers through his hair.

He flops down onto his stomach next to her, his nose pressing into her thigh. "Dolphins."

"What? Where?" She struggles to her feet, takes his hand and yanks him up next to her. "Show me."

She starts to head down the beach, stops in her tracks as his fingertips skate up the ridge of her spine. She hadn't initially understood his fascination with her two-piece, but then he'd come out of the bathroom in his bathing suit and all her breath had left her. She's still captivated by the flare of his hips into the waistband of his shorts, the width of his shoulders.

He looks like he could protect her, and yes, she's still adamant she doesn't need protection from him or anyone, but on some primitive level she likes it. A study in contradictions, he called her once, and he's not wrong.

She turns back around to face him, has to stifle a gasp as his hands come up to cup her cheeks, his mouth meeting hers so carefully, with such reverence she could cry. He pulls away slowly, gives her a soft smile. "Come on."

* * *

He'd been a little startled, actually. Not just by the sighting of dolphins on the horizon, although that had left him breathless, but by the fact that his thoughts had immediately jumped to Kate. His first instinct, his gut reaction was to go to her, share the magic with her.

They'd run down to the waters edge together and he'd pointed out the smudges of gray against the startling cobalt sky, the blurred line of their fins. One of them had jumped and she'd gasped, started wading into the water as if she could go to them, be a part of the display.

He's not even really watching the dolphins anymore, so utterly entranced by Kate that he can't tear his eyes away from her. He loves her like this, loves how passionately she feels things, how desperately she wants to enjoy every little thing life throws at her.

One near death experience too many has given her a new lease on life and sometimes (yes, he knows it's terrible) he's glad she almost fell off the roof. He's grateful to Maddox for helping her see what she was giving up.

He hates that he owes having her now, sharing his life with her, to the man that shot her, but that's just the way it is. He's trying to make his peace with that, a very private battle he refuses to involve her in. he knows she's already riddled with guilt, will not add to that.

He steps carefully into the water, an intense magnetism drawing him in to her. His hands fall to her hips and she settles back into him, meets his eyes over her shoulder. "This is amazing. Look at them."

She laughs, so much awe in the single note of joy that he's winded, just absolutely knocked out by her. "I know. It's incredible, right?"

She turns away from him, her eyes glued to the animals on the horizon again. He's struck silent by her profile, how he can see her absorption in even the snatches of her face he's gifted with.

The dolphins slip out of sight and Kate turns back to him, eyes glinting. "You know one thing that dolphins have in common with humans that no other animal does?"

He shakes his head at her and she steps into him, presses her body to his, her hands coming up to rest at his shoulders. She pushes up onto her tiptoes, her mouth coming to rest at the shell of his ear.

It's so like the end of their first case, only now he can slide his hands over her hips to her waist, cling to her to keep himself standing. "They also have sex for pleasure."

A growl rips from his chest without his permission and he pushes her back from him, just far enough that he can crash his lips to hers, taste her again and again.

When he pulls back she's laughing at him but her eyes are dark, shining with arousal. He takes her hand and laces their fingers together, leads her up to the house.

* * *

Martha has been doing the same thing she's done every day since she got here. She lives vibrantly, her emotions extreme and _loud_. It's the way she's always been, it's what makes her a great actress, but she has to take a couple of months every year to rejuvenate, to find some balance again.

Today is the first day she's been truly peaceful. Of course she's spoken to her son, and he'd told her very briefly that he was doing well, that Kate was there. She'd just been struggling to believe he could be happy after she'd watched his heart break.

She's not struggling any more. When the two of them arrived yesterday Martha had spent a long time talking to Kate. Partly because she'd been so worried about the detective, but also because she wanted to watch how her son behaved when her attention was not on him.

She doesn't think he's stopped touching Kate since they arrived. Even when he was making dinner, he kept coming over to partake in the conversation for a moment, and every time he did his hand fell to Kate's shoulder, as if she were a touchstone.

Martha can't recall ever seeing her son look so grounded, so content and happy and in love. It doesn't surprise her. The biggest surprise is that far from resenting it, Kate seems to be basking in Richard's attentions. If Martha ever had any doubts, they've long been erased. One glance at the detective and even someone not so trained in reading people's emotions would be able to tell how she loves him.

Her iPod playlist finishes right as they go past her, she can hear her son's indistinct murmuring and Kate's soft laughter. She hears a door open and then shut and she wakens her iPod, starts a new playlist. There are blinds on the full length windows of the master bedroom, but something tells her neither of them will remember to close them.

She'll just stay right where she is until one of them emerges and she knows it's safe.

(She's pretty liberal but there are sides to their child that no mother _ever_ wants to see.)


	25. Chapter 25

**Author's Note: I'm so sorry for the delay; I've been on vacation without internet access. Things should get back to normal now.**

* * *

"Kate." She smiles slowly, sinks down a little lower in the water so he won't see her immediately. She's not hiding from him, not really. She just feels mischievous today, feels like messing with him a little bit.

He jogs down the sand towards the shoreline, calling her name over and over. She's still smiling, her hair fanning out around her head and floating on the water, but when the sharp edge of panic starts to creep into his voice she stands up.

She feels a little bit like a Bond girl, droplets of water sliding down her skin enticingly and her swimsuit clinging to her curves. She watches him relax; can see from several meters away how the tension drains from his shoulders.

She reaches him and presses the length of her body against his, not caring that she's getting his clothes wet. She stretches up to meet his mouth, kisses him slowly. She'll give him a minute to get rid of the last notes of panic from his system, let him wind down from the building crescendo.

She drops back down to flat feet, smiles up at him. "I'm right here."

He smiles back, finally, and she sighs her relief as inconspicuously as she can. It makes her so tense when he's anything less than relaxed. She's used to him being the more light-hearted of the two of them, relies on him to find the levity in situations that threaten to crush her.

He shrugs. "When I asked you to make yourself scarce, I didn't mean hide."

She'd tried very hard not to take offense when he'd asked her – basically - to go away for a half hour or so. She knows he's been planning some sort of surprise for her and that he needed her out of the way so he could put the finishing touches on it, but it still stung.

"I wasn't hiding," she grins at him, pushes a lank strand of wet hair out of her face. "I was just swimming. Has my exile been revoked now?" She laughs, but he doesn't, his face so solemn that she rocks back a little. "What?"

He reaches out for her, pulls her into him and wraps his arms around her. He kisses her temple, rests his chin on top of her head. "You know you were never exiled right? I'd never send you away for real."

She pulls back from him but leaves her hands linked behind his back. "I know, I'm just teasing. Do I get to see what you were doing now?"

He darts forwards to press his mouth to hers and smiles against her lips. "Yeah. Come on."

* * *

He'd wanted to do something special for her. He'd woken up before her for once and just laid there; content in the warmth of her where she curled against him, how it felt to have her breath ghost across his chest.

He's so grateful for her, grateful that he gets to have her, and as he'd watched her sleep he'd been slowly consumed with a burning desire to do something for her. No huge gestures, he'd worked out that she hates those during their second case together, but something heartfelt to show her how much she means to him.

He'd still been plotting when she'd woken up and she'd noticed, been suspicious of him all morning. In the end he'd had to ask her to give him a half hour to 'do… something'. She'd been wary of his vagueness but had shrugged and wandered off, muttering something under her breath about arresting him for suspicious activity.

It's worth it, worth her doubts, worth the panic when he couldn't find her, to see her face now. To be the man who painted on her smile. She sinks to her knees onto the picnic blanket he laid out, opens the hamper and starts taking out the food he made.

She stops halfway through unpacking their lunch and looks up at him, shielding her eyes with her hand. "What are you waiting for?"

He drops to his knees and crawls across the blanket to her, pushing her backwards with his body. She lies back, arches her neck to meet his mouth. He presses his open mouth to the underside of her jaw, traces a line down her jugular vein and sucks gently on her pulse. He slides a hand underneath her back and sits up, bringing her with him. She leans against his side and kisses his earlobe, slides a hand up underneath his shirt to flirt with his ribcage.

He wraps his fingers around her wrist and moves her hand away, presses his lips to her palm. She curls her fingers in, traps his kiss under them and he wants to weep with gratitude. "Love you, Kate."

She beams at him, turns away to rummage in the hamper and then resurfaces, passes him a sandwich. He doesn't think she's going to answer, and he's quite content with that. He probably says the words three times for every one time she does but that's okay. She always has dealt more in actions. But then-

"Thank you for this. Love you too." It still knocks him out to hear her say it and he beams at her, shrugs.

"You deserve it, love."

* * *

Through a mouthful of food, he'd suggested a boat ride this afternoon. She'd shrugged noncommittally, kept a tight lid on the excitement that bubbled in her stomach.

She hasn't been on a boat since family vacations with her parents, almost twenty years ago. She'd always loved it then and she's suddenly struck with a fierce wash of longing. She knows doing this will sharpen the edges of her grief, make her miss her mother intensely, but it's still good. Castle helps her to take the old memories and renew them, make them wonderful in a different way.

It's something she's never found with anyone else before, but she's not sure how to tell him, how to put it into words.

Martha drives them to the little harbor town that the boat leaves from, says something to Castle about shopping and friends and picking them up again, but Kate's not really listening.

She's too busy soaking in the atmosphere of the harbor, studying the boats lined up like soldiers at the mercy of the tides, the scratch of the boards against the soles of her shoes.

Martha envelops her in a hug, kisses her cheek and steps back, leaving Kate in a musk of perfume and lipstick. She watches the older woman give Castle the same treatment and smiles in response to her parting instruction to 'have fun'. Martha disappears off down a back street and Kate turns back to Castle, smiles at him.

"She not coming with us?"

"Mother gets seasick." He makes a face to convey that it's not an attractive sight and Kate lets out a peal of laughter.

"This place is gorgeous." It really is. She knows it's probably half to do with the sun, with the welcome breeze that rolls off the estuary, but she's quickly falling in love with the sleepy atmosphere of the town.

He grins, takes her hand. "Yeah, I almost decided on an apartment here rather than the house, be nearer to the boat, but the private beach lured me in."

She can feel herself gaping at him but she's totally lost control of her face. "You have a boat? Where?"

He laughs as she scans the harbor for it, tugs her against his side and kisses her cheekbone. "It's not here. We're getting the foot ferry to Sag Harbor. I keep the boat there. Usually Alexis and I get the ferry to Sagand then sail back on _our_ boat. We can do that today if you want, or we could walk. Or Mother could pick us up in the car. Whatever you want."

She's a little overwhelmed by the options, they all sound good to her. "Well we're getting lunch in Sag Harbor, right? So we have some time to decide."

* * *

He loves this boat. Alexis had been six years old the first time they'd ever gotten the ferry, long before he'd had a boat of his own. He never gets tired of the captain's commentary, the scenery.

He's up on the top deck with Kate. The boat is packed and he's using it as an excuse to press himself next to her on the bench seat, every inch of his right side pressed to her left.

He's doing his own little guided tour for her, whispering in her ear so he can point out all the things he likes seeing. "Can you see that just over there near those trees? It's the wreck of a racing yacht. Cool right?"

He's endlessly fascinated by the skeletal remains of the boat. Each piece of wood that makes up the slowly rotting frame must have such fascinating stories to tell, stories he'd love to hear.

Kate takes his hand and winds their fingers together, drops their joined hands to her thigh. "Yeah. Wow. I wonder what it looked like when it was new."

She drops her head to rest against his shoulder and he brings his free hand up to brush her hair out of her eyes, cup her cheek. "We could Google it when we get home?"

She laughs, raises her head to meet his eyes. "I'd rather not spoilt what my imagination came up with."

He shrugs at that, forces himself to remain nonchalant even though he'd love nothing more than a peek inside her imagination. When they'd first met he'd doubted she even had one, picturing it as some withered thing in her brain deprived of both light and love. The cruelty of the thought fills him with shame now that he really knows her, knows how wrong he was.

"We're coming in to Sag Harbor now. Most of these boats are owned by people who live here or have vacation homes." He makes a sweeping gesture to encompass the hundred or so boats that bob on the water, the ripples from the ferry sending them dancing atop the waves.

She raises an eyebrow. "Which one's yours?"

"Guess," he shoots back and she pulls her lower lip into her mouth and chews on it in concentration. She points to a huge yacht several meters from them, with its own jetty that can only be reached by boat. He snorts and shakes his head.

She leans forward in her seat, scans the water. She points out a tiny dinghy next, shoots him a grin. He rolls his eyes at her, uses two fingers at her jaw to turn her head in the right direction.

He knows when she sees it because she gasps and whips back around to face him, the wind turning her hair into this wild mane around her head that he longs to run his hands through. "The _Alexis Katherine_? Really?"

He smiles sheepishly at her. "Too much?"

She shakes her head slowly, blinks hard. "No, just- when did you buy her?"

He's been waiting to tell her this story since he brought her here. "The summer I spent out here with Gina." Kate's eyebrows shoot up into her hairline and he continues, fighting a smirk. "She was just _Alexis_ then, which her namesake thought was weird. After I broke it off with Gina, Alexis the girl and I came out here to spend the weekend on Alexis the boat to cheer me up, and she insisted that I tack another name on to make it 'less weird'. She said it should be someone I care about."

Kate chews on her lip again. "What about your mother? You could have named it after her."

He grins at her, shrugs. "She gets seasick."

Kate's laughter turns every head waiting on the pier.


	26. Chapter 26

The day they head home, something feels off. With Kate. He can't put his finger on it. He wants to put his fingers on _her_, see if he can get it out of her when she's naked under him.

His mother left the night before, wanted to get back to the city for a party, so this morning it's just him and Kate. Which is wonderful. He's been eyeing her over the rim of his coffee mug since she handed it to him, and she seems oblivious.

Her own mug is long empty but her slender fingers are still wrapped around it even as she gazes out of the window. He swallows the last dregs of caffeine, stands up from his chair and eases her mug from her hands. She looks up at him, gives him a beaming smile. It helps to ease something inside him, but he's still concerned.

He washes their mugs and plates by hand, gives her a little more time to herself. As he's drying the last of it she comes up behind him, wraps her arms around his waist and laces her fingers together at his stomach. He finishes up, turns in the circle of her arms and kisses her cheek with as much tenderness as he can muster.

"You okay?" He holds her gaze, tries to convey how serious he is.

She blinks up at him, smiles softly. "Yeah. Just thinking."

He wants to ask _about what _but he doesn't dare. He can't stop himself from needing her, they both know that. But he doesn't need to know her thoughts. "Okay."

He shrugs, brushes it off and goes to move away from her. She tightens her arms, her eyebrows knitting together. "Hey. Do I not get a kiss?"

He laughs, darts towards her with his mouth already open. He tries to keep it chaste but she's pushing him back into the counter and rolling her hips against his and shit, _shit_, he is going to lose it if she doesn't stop _right now_.

He tears his mouth away from hers, pants against her forehead. "Christ, Kate. I thought we agreed to head back to the city right after breakfast."

She raises an eyebrow at him, a slow and sinfully seductive smile spreading across her face. "You are breakfast."

* * *

In the car on the way back to the city, Kate tries to pay him more attention than she did on the way out here. She lets him chatter inanely, fills the silence with stories of her own. She's trying to distract herself from her own brain.

Ever since she was very young, trips away have always signalled the end of vacation. She and her parents always went away for the last week of summer break, so returning always makes her feel ready to start back to work.

And by that merit, she should be going back to the precinct. Only she's not, and she still can't work out how she feels about it.

She wants to go back. She misses the thrill of solving cases. She misses her team. She misses having that structure to her life. And now, after this summer, she finally trusts herself to be able to stay away from her mom's case. She trusts that next time, when Castle comes to her and begs her to stop she'll remember everything she has to lose and she'll walk away.

She knows Gates will take her back, the boys have told her as much. She's a damn good detective, and the captain knows it. She feels ready. She feels refreshed, open and relaxed and happier than she's ever been.

She stretches a hand across the center console, presses her palm to his thigh. "Hey Castle? I think I'm ready to go back to work."

He startles, his gaze flying to her. She gasps, pushes on his thigh. "Castle, eyes on the road."

He turns his head back, looks at the road, but his attention is still on her. "Just like that? You're just ready?"

She shrugs, chews on her bottom lip for a moment. He's told her so many times how every time she does that he's consumed with a desperate need to rescue her perfect mouth from her teeth. It doesn't make her want to stop.

"I've had-" she pauses, sighs, tries to collect herself. She wants to get this right, try not to hurt him. "The most wonderful summer. But it feels done. The air's turned. Can't you feel it?"

He grins, glances at her again. "Yeah. Feels like Fall, huh?"

She beams at him, so inordinately glad that he understands. "Yeah. It feels like it's time. I quit because I wanted a life and I needed time to learn how to be with you, how to do this right. I needed to prove to myself that I could exist without my mom's case ruling everything. And I think I'm doing okay?"

He doesn't look at her this time, just reaches a hand down to squeeze her fingers briefly. "You're amazing. This is so much better than I ever dared hope."

She flushes, caught out by the naked honesty in his voice. "Me too. And I think I'm ready to do it right, balance the job and my life."

"Well you don't have to do it alone. I'll be there to say 'it's time to go home now Kate, you're not sleeping in the break room again'." She laughs softly. They both know she probably won't take kindly to that. She so desperately wants to believe that she can still be good for him if she goes back to work, but she knows it's going to be a battle.

She's quiet for a moment, letting their words settle in the car, and when she does speak again she's so quiet that she wonders if he's heard. "I know what I'm missing now, Castle. And if my mom's case crops up again and you come to me and beg me to stop, I promise you I will. You, this-" she waves her hand between them, "I don't want to lose it. Not to that."

As if she has a preference. As if there's any way she could lose him that wouldn't ruin her.

He nods, his profile so striking even now that it takes her breath away. "I trust you. I really do. I trust you to listen to me. And if this is what you want, if you truly want to go back, then you have my unwavering support."

"I know. I know I do. Thank you." She shifts in her seat, curls a leg up underneath her so she can see him more easily, watch him drive. She'll never tell him, but she loves it when he drives. It's hard for her to relinquish that control, but she trusts him.

She loves watching the ripple of muscle in his forearms, the furrow of concentration between his eyebrows. He always takes it so very seriously when she lets him drive, determined to show her that he can do it just as well as she can.

She loves the way he glances at her, not wanting anything, just checking that she's okay. She thought she'd find it stifling, but the way he cares for her just makes her feel safe in a way she hasn't since her mother's death.

They don't speak until they arrive back at the loft, when she steps out of the car and arches her back, her muscles protesting vehemently. She likes the feeling of her vertebrae clicking back into place, the tension draining out of long stretches of sinew.

He growls softly, rounds the car and backs her up against it, his tongue hot and heavy in her mouth before she can draw a breath. "You are so hot."

She laughs, scrapes her teeth along the stubble at his jaw. "Yeah, well, so are you." She drops her head to his shoulder, groans. "I gotta call Gates and ask for my job back."

He laughs into her hair, takes her hand and squeezes. "Yeah, good luck with that."

"What if she says no?" he opens his mouth and she presses three fingers to it, shoots him a glare. "Don't you dare call the mayor."

He pouts at her, huffs a sigh and starts leading her across the underground garage to the elevator. She lets him press the button, lets him step in first when the doors open. The small things, things like this; she doesn't even have to think about anymore. They just happen, the things she can do to please him that don't cost her anything.

In the loft, she closes his office door in his face so she can make the call. Pointless, really, since the walls are bookshelves and he can hear everything. He laughs at her as she grovels to the captain, pleads and cajoles, makes promises she has no intention of keeping.

She's glad for it, though. She didn't know how badly she really wanted her job back until Gates made her fight for it.

She comes out of the office, beams at Castle. "She wants me in first thing Monday morning. I have to requalify at the range in order to get my weapon back, but apart from that I'm good to go."

He laughs, delighted and free, pulls her into his arms and kisses her reverently, his hands mapping her back, winding in her hair. "I'm so proud of you."

Just like that, everything clicks back into place. Just like that, she's whole.

**END**

* * *

**Author's Note: **So here it is. We've reached the end. It ends here because I wanted this to be a summer headcanon, and now that we have the promo and therefore some idea of what's really going to happen, it feels like it's time for this fic to come to a close.

I want to thank you all for sticking with me through my somewhat erratic posting habits, for your wonderful reviews and your genuine submersion in my little bit of fiction. You have never failed to make me smile.


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